In 1988, the Merry Hill Minibus company was formed by the former owners of the
Merry Hill Centre,
Richardson Developments. Originally launched to compete with
West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive's Mini Buzz service, at that time the Merry Hill Minibuses were the major form of public transport linking the surrounding areas with the shopping centre, of which approximately half had been opened by the time the service was launched (the first retailers had moved to the centre in 1985 and it was completed in 1989). In the early days, the fleet consisted of
Carlyle Works bodied
Freight Rover Sherpa vehicles. An attraction to customers of the Merry Hill Minibus service was that the buses gave change to passengers not having the exact fare, which was not the case with the incumbent
West Midlands Travel. The company intended to operate around 100 vehicles from the time of the centre's completion in November 1989, but stalled at 46 following the
early 1990s recession. The operating centre was moved in 1999 from the back of the
Merry Hill Centre to the
Pensnett Trading Estate in
Dudley. Subsequently, the garage was relocated to a larger location elsewhere on the Estate to cater for an increased allocation of vehicles. The routes were mostly withdrawn and the fleet used standard West Midlands Travel buses such as Leyland Nationals and MCW Metrobuses. On 17 February 2001, following a group restructuring, the Travel Merry Hill services were absorbed into Travel West Midlands with the Travel Merry Hill brand dropped. ==References==