Merry Hill Shopping Centre closing in June 1990. A further blow came when the local council, Dudley Metropolitan Borough, announced that it was bringing in parking charges throughout the area; this turned more shoppers away from local town centres, and towards the Merry Hill Centre, where parking remains free. Though there have been plans for introducing parking charges at the centre, this has been criticised, ironically, due to fears of impacting trade. In 2008, Merry Hill Centre, along with nearby Brierley Hill, was redesignated as the 'strategic town centre' of the Dudley Borough, and thus the focus of future local government investment. The Merry
History of the West Midlands and 1980s, with towns including Bilston, Darlaston, Wednesbury, Tipton and Brierley Hill being hit particularly hard by factory closures. However, new lighter industrial began to develop in some of these areas, with a large retail park developing in the north of Wednesbury during the 1990s and a light industrial estate being built in the south of the town. Brierley Hill became home to the giant Merry Hill Shopping Centre, which developed between 1985 and 1990. Many of the former industrial sites in Tipton, however, have been mostly developed for new housing. Coventry was slower to develop, but by the early