West Midlands Mayor Andy Street, who ran one of Britain's biggest retailers, is looking to breathe new life into struggling high streets and town centres

The rise in online shopping, banking and other services has seen many retailers desert smaller centres or, like Woolworths and more recently Maplins and Poundworld, go out of business altogether.

Meanwhile leisure uses like coffee shops, nail bars and craft beer pubs are on the rise.

in 2016 Mr Street stepped down as managing director of the John Lewis department store chain to become West Midlands Mayor and now has responsibility for jobs and economic growth across Birmingham, the Black Country and beyond.

He is steeped in retail having risen through the ranks from the shop floor to the boardroom from where he ran the company for almost a decade. During this time it became best known for its eye-catching Christmas advertising campaigns.

Now he is working with councils, businesses and other agencies across the region to find suitable places to pilot a new town centre revival project.

He has remained tight lipped about where he is looking but sources suggest an area like Aldridge, the small but lively town between the major shopping areas of Sutton Coldfield and Walsall could be an ideal place to test his ideas.

The pilot project will draw heavily on the advice outlined in the report by former Iceland and Wickes chief Bill Grimsey published last week which warned that 70,000 retail jobs will be lost this year across the UK, and that 100,000 shop units will be left empty over the next decade.

Mr Street says that the retail sector will survive but it will be online where and pointed out Amazon had recently announced 2,500 new jobs in the region.

"It might not be traditional retail, but it's still retail."

He denied his plans would be like 'Mary Queen of Shops' - the TV show in which consultant Mary Portas rescues struggling high street shops - and would need to look beyond retailers if town centres are to avoid becoming ghost towns.

"What we have is not just a retail problem, but a town centre problem," he explained.

The Grimsey Report concluded that town centres can no longer survive on shops alone and they need to be open to alternatives like housing, community facilities, leisure, offices, arts spaces and education facillities.

Mr Street, talking to the Huffington Post website, agreed: "So we’ve got to think about it as a much wider issue, because you’re not going to have a situation where a town centre can be sustained just by retail.

"The Grimsey report said we’ve got to think again about what the purpose of the town centre is in the next ten years. We’ve got to embrace changes not resist them.

"It has got to be about community hubs, it’s got to be about start up spaces for entrepreneurs - young people want to work in the city centre.

"It has probably got to be where public services are delivered, so why haven’t got more services where there are customer flows.

Andy Street during his days as John Lewis MD

"It’s got to be much more leisure and entertainment because this is where people are spending more of their money. More people want to live in a town centre as well."

He said that he hopes to prove the theory in the region and will be announcing three or four pilot areas in the near future. But he stressed that local councils, private landlords, transport providers and other agencies like the health service will be asked to do their bit to help.