By Thursday, Burnham’s attention had turned to businesses, announcing a 20% cut to rates for pubs and small live music venues.
Aidan Lavin co-owns the Raven and Bine pub in Southampton and said: “It’s a promising start from the new prime minister, however, I fear it’s nothing even close to enough.
“The increasing pressure from VAT to business rates to an increased minimum wage, it just feels like the walls are closing in from all angles.”
Lavin said he believes that without further measures, businesses across the South would not survive.
“It’s coming to a point now where we are going to lose some of our inns and taverns, never to be returned,” he told the BBC.
On Friday, Burnham headed to Manchester to spend his first day working at No 10 North, a new regional branch of the PM’s office.
It is part of a move to shift power away from Whitehall and in to “every postcode”, external.
Operating from Heron House in Manchester’s city centre, No 10 North will be the government’s new situation room for growth, it was announced.
It brings the “levers of local economic growth and devolution together under one roof for the first time”, said the government.
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