Funds to help local people turn empty shops, pubs and clubs into community hubs, shared workspaces and cafes.
The UK government has pledged £210m to regenerate high streets by taking boarded-up shops, pubs and clubs and turning them into shared workspaces, cafes and community hubs.
High streets continue to struggle, despite multiple government attempts at regeneration, after a shift to online shopping and services such as banking and estate agents, as well as higher business costs including taxes, energy and labour.
The cost of living crunch has also prompted people to rein in spending on non-essentials and driven a shift to dining and drinking at home instead of spending on eating out.
Burnham said it was important to find ways of reviving high streets despite the challenges.
“They measure it by looking at their local high street.”
“The truth is that too many high streets have been left to hollow out, leaving town centres a shell of what they once were.”
Research by the University of Southampton found people feel high streets have declined more than any other part of their local area over the past decade as household chains, from BHS to Debenhams, have collapsed while shoplifting has increased.
Rose Marley, the chief executive of trade body Co-operatives UK, said the new specialist fund to back the creation of mutuals was “a game changer”.
Labour pledged to double the number of co-operatives in the UK but its figures showed the number rose by just 0.4% last year to 8,005.