Labour will allow councils to seize abandoned shops to give them a new lease of life as cooperatives or community centres, a policy designed to revive struggling high streets.

Jeremy Corbyn is expected to announce the shake-up on a visit to a high street in Bolton on Saturday, calling the sight of boarded-up shops a “symptom of economic decay” which is lowering living standards.

Under the Labour proposals, local authorities could offer properties which had been vacant for 12 months to startups, cooperative businesses and community projects.

The policy was prompted by a study by the Local Data Company which found more than 10% of town centre shops were empty. About 29,000 retail units are estimated to have been left empty for at least a year, according to the study, which found that the high-street vacancy rate rose last year to 11.5% and that 4.8% of vacant space on high streets had been vacant for more than two years. In shopping centres, that number rose to 5.8%.

“Boarded-up shops are a symptom of economic decay under the Conservatives and a sorry symbol of the malign neglect so many communities have suffered,” Corbyn will say.

“Once-thriving high streets are becoming ghost streets. Labour has a radical plan to revive Britain’s struggling high streets by turning the blight of empty shops into the heart of the high street, with thousands of new businesses and projects getting the chance to fulfil their potential.”

Initiatives to regenerate high streets were a key policy pledge at Labour’s party conference and are understood to be a significant part of the party’s strategy in less-affluent towns, particularly those in the Midlands and north-east targeted by the Conservatives after the Brexit vote.

The party’s five-point plan for reviving the high street includes banning ATM charges and action to dissuade bank branch and post office closures, as well as free bus travel for under-25s and a review of the business rates system.

The shadow communities secretary, Andrew Gwynne, said: “Under this government, our high streets have suffered a retail apocalypse. High-street closures are at a historic high, leaving too many of our once thriving towns abandoned and awash with boarded-up shop fronts.

“Labour’s radical plan will turn around the mess that the Tories have created and will give local authorities the power to make our high streets the pride of our communities that they once were.”

Mike Cherry, the national chairman of the Federation of Small Businesses, said more action needed to be taken to stop shops from closing down, rather than just repurposing abandoned buildings.

“Small businesses on our high streets are under pressure like never before, with costs rising, employment burdens weighing heavy and political uncertainty – and rows of boarded-up shops do not make for a healthy or inspiring town centre,” he said.

“While finding new ways to reopen closed shops is positive, this is after the fact they have shut. Sustainable, diverse and thriving high streets rest on good local investment to make the public realm more attractive, and stopping rents and rates bills becoming unaffordable for businesses in the first place.”

The communities minister, Jake Berry, dismissed the proposal, alleging that Labour’s tax policies would cause more businesses to leave high streets. “Jeremy Corbyn would wreck the economy, tax small businesses and scare off the investment needed to help our high streets, meaning more boarded-up shops and fewer jobs,” he said.