the green space, rather than on the former steelworks site. Despite protests from local residents, the project went ahead and by Christmas 1985 the first three stores — Queensway furniture store, MFI home furnishings retail warehouse (the complex's very first tenant) and Atlantis Electrical superstore — were trading from the site. In November of that year, the Richardson twins announced plans to expand Merry Hill into a large indoor shopping centre to rival the recently completed developments at Telford in Shropshire and Milton Keynes in Buckinghamshire, with a view to completing the development by 1990. The building contract for the shopping malls was awarded to Tarmac Construction. The second phase of the retail park including Halfords and B&Q and the first phase of the indoor shopping centre opened in April 1986. A Carrefour hypermarket opened on 1 July that year, but closed within two years and it's place was taken by a Gateway supermarket. Asda had replaced Gateway by 1990 and have held the tenancy ever since. The ground floor of the shopping mall was extended during 1987 and the upper level shops opened in early 1988. A separate 10-screen cinema was opened in November 1988. The 350-seat Jules Verne food court, which offered a round-the-world eating experience and had a large globe-shaped balloon as its centrepiece, was opened in June 1989 on the upper level shopping mall. However, it had closed within five years due to disappointing trade. Additional shops were put in its place. Construction of the final phase of the centre was completed in 1989. A Sainsbury's supermarket and fast-food chain Burger King opened in September and the department store chains Debenhams and British Home Stores in November. Marks and Spencer opened on 23 October 1990, two months after the closure of its West Bromwich and Dudley stores on 25 August. On 24 December 1990, the shopping centre was sold to Mountleigh. Phase 4 of the shopping centre was partly remodelled in 1996, a mere seven years after it had been built. Road access to the complex was improved in 1998 with the completion of alterations to the two access points from the A4036 main road between Dudley and Pedmore — this resulted in more than 40 houses being demolished to make way for the widened road and re-designed Quarry Bank junction. This project had first been proposed in 1989, and caused much controversy among residents whose