Burnham puts £210m behind high street revival as critics call for faster action

The prime minister has committed £210m to reinvigorate high streets and community centres across the country, in a bid to reverse years of shuttered shopfronts and abandoned commercial property.

Andy Burnham said the funding would be directed at bringing empty premises back into use, with the aim of turning them into "community hubs, health centres, shared workspaces, cafés and the local services that people actually want to see." The money is drawn from a pot already set aside by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government for high street support and regeneration.

The announcement lands at a politically significant moment, arriving just ahead of Burnham's first appearance at the Labour Party conference as prime minister. He is expected to use the platform in Liverpool to underline a central theme of his administration: that the government's mission is "making life more affordable."

Much of the money is targeted at the physical fabric of decline. A £125m derelict buildings fund is intended to renovate mothballed and dilapidated properties, giving councils and community groups the means to repurpose structures that have been left empty for years.

A further £85m is earmarked to allow communities themselves to take on neglected spaces, including former pubs, clubs and shops. This reflects a shift in approach towards ownership models in which local residents and organisations step in to run assets the market has walked away from — a strategy the government has previously promoted through wider devolution of powers to local government and combined authorities.

The remaining allocations focus on sustaining viable businesses and easing the cost of occupying empty units. Some £65m has been set aside to support firms and buildings judged to be at risk of closure, while a final £20m is intended to help communities establish co-operative businesses and sublet units they cannot fill themselves.

Burnham framed the intervention as a direct response to the lived experience of voters rather than abstract economic indicators. He said: "People don't measure growth by looking at a spreadsheet. They measure it by looking at their local high street. Are shops opening or are the shutters down? Does the place feel like it's moving forward or being left behind?" The funding, he argued, would "help put power back into the hands of locals who know their area best."

Communities Secretary Angela Rayner said the scheme represented a visible change in what residents should expect to see on their streets, with "boarded-up buildings that have been left to rack and ruin turned into places people are proud to visit again." The emphasis on boarded-up premises is significant, because vacancy on British high streets has become one of the most visible markers of economic weakness, prompting repeated calls from retailers, local authorities and think tanks for intervention.

First Secretary of State Louise Haigh framed the package as an example of resources being transferred to people best placed to use them, saying the investment would give local residents what they need to drive change. "This is what devolution means in practice," she said, signalling that the government intends to present the funding as part of a broader push to hand decision-making downwards.

The announcement also builds on an earlier measure announced this summer, under which pubs, clubs and social venues were told to expect 20% cuts to business rates from April. Taken together, the two policies reflect a strategy of using the tax system and direct capital funding to support the hospitality and retail sectors that anchor town centres.

The timing of the pledge has drawn criticism from the opposition. Peter Kyle, the business secretary to former prime minister Sir Keir Starmer, said Burnham needed to act with "more urgency" to boost economic growth, with the party conference under way in Liverpool this weekend. His intervention underscores a recurring Conservative line: that rhetorical commitment to high streets is of limited value without faster decisions and a clear growth strategy.

The Conservatives have set out their own competing vision for "stronger high streets", which includes abolishing business rates for thousands of businesses and pledging to protect what they describe as key pillars of community life, such as post offices, pubs and pharmacies. The contrast between the two offers is therefore as much about the tax burden on small firms as it is about capital grants for empty buildings.

Whether the £210m proves transformative will depend on how quickly money reaches individual high streets and whether renovated premises find lasting tenants. Government data has long shown that business rates relief alone tends to slow, rather than reverse, the decline of town-centre footfall, as spending shifts online and out-of-town. Community ownership and cooperative models can sustain premises in places where private landlords and retailers have withdrawn, but they typically require patient capital, local capacity and a steady supply of volunteers and skills.

For Burnham, the immediate test is rhetorical as much as fiscal. His first conference as leader sets the tone for a parliamentary term in which affordability is the stated priority, and high street policy offers a tangible way to demonstrate it — visible in shop windows up and down the country, long after the applause in Liverpool has faded.

The BBC reported separately that Burnham faces criticism over the pace of his efforts to support growth, with opposition figures arguing that the government has been too slow to demonstrate an economic plan. The high streets package is likely to form part of a broader set of announcements as the party gathers, with affordability, devolution and business rates all likely to feature prominently in the debates in Liverpool.