Morrisons today took over Merry Hill’s former Best Buy store with its new Kiddicare baby products chain – creating up to 70 jobs.

Thousands of UK shop workers – scores of them in Staffordshire and the Black Country – today faced the prospect of losing their jobs in the collapse of budget fashion chain Peacocks.

A sales frenzy has broken out across Staffordshire and the Black Country, with store shelves stripped of bargains and  shoppers pushed over in the jostle for cut-price goods.

Shoplifters have stolen more than £360,000 worth of goods from three major Midland shopping centres in just 18 months – costing traders more than £20,000 a month, it emerged today.

Millions of shoppers hit the high streets in search of a bargain today as the Boxing Day sales got off to a storming start. Large queues built up outside city centre stores in Wolverhampton and Birmingham as well as the Merry Hill Centre in Dudley hours before the doors opened.

Youngsters from four schools across the West Midlands are celebrating after scooping top titles in a popular annual Christmas choir competition.

Shopping centres and high streets across the Black Country and Staffordshire were today bracing themselves for what experts predict could be the busiest shopping day of the pre-Christmas rush.

They are a well known sight and over the years have been a meeting point for thousands of shoppers navigating their way around the Merry Hill Centre.

Bosses at a budget electrical firm in Merry Hill that is due to close down are “absolutely confident” they will be able to relocate the majority of staff.

Darlaston’s Mark Rhodes and his TV partner Sam Nixon delighted hundreds of fans when they performed the annual Christmas lights switch-on at a Black Country shopping centre.