Black Country shopping destination, intu Merry Hill, launched its first Retailer Awards at a gala evening on Saturday 24th September 2016.

The awards were held in the evening at The Copthorne Hotel, Dudley and were hosted by broadcaster and DJ, Edith Bowman. Categories included World Class Service Award, Corporate Responsibility Award and Department Store of the Year Award.

The winner of the Store of the Year went to Debenhams, with Primark as runners-up in the Highly Commended category. Speciality Retailer of the Year went to Yankee Candle, with The Card Factory as runner up, and the Store Development Award went to intu Merry Hill newcomer Topshop/Topman, who opened their first store in the centre in April of this year. The Department Store of the Year Award went to Primark.

There were fourteen award categories in all covering all retail sectors including health and beauty, jewellery, footwear, food, ladieswear, menswear, toy and leisure and also store development, speciality, world class service, variety, security and corporate responsibility. All winners won an intu trophy, with the Highly Commended stores receiving a certificate. Robert Pickersgill, marketing manager at intu Merry Hill, said:

“We wanted to recognise our retailers for the fantastic work they do. The success of intu Merry Hill is down to the quality and passion of our retailers and the complete shopping experience they offer our visitors.

"The best judges are our visitors, so we asked our them to nominate their favourite store in each category via our Facebook page, and had over 2,500 responses”.

intu Merry Hill is the fifth largest shopping centre in the UK. It has over 1.4 million square feet of retail space across two levels with over 10,000 free parking spaces and enjoys over 23 million visitors each year.