The County Durham businesswoman said she wanted to help shape the strategy for the online retailer

Well-known North East entrepreneur Sara Davies has taken a stake in the online retail site Not On The High Street, it has been announced.

The Dragons’ Den star appeared on the business TV series between 2019 and 2025 after making her name with her own company, Crafter’s Companion, in County Durham.

She has joined the online marketplace as a non-executive director and equity investor. The company did not disclose the value of the personal investment made by Ms Davies but she described it as a “meaningful stake”. Ms Davies said Not On The High Street was no longer trying to compete with Chinese online marketplaces such as Shein and Temu, which are known for their vast and fast-changing inventories of cheaper goods exported around the world.

She said: “We’re in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis and there are customers who are shopping on Temu and Shein, and that’s what’s appropriate for them and their spending at the moment.

“But there’s a whole different wave of customers who want to buy quality, artisan, handmade, personalised products and it’s those customers that we want to reach.

“People in the UK are really rebelling against this fast-fashion culture,” she said. “They are being more thoughtful and considered in what they’re buying, so they’re not wanting to buy the cheap tat.”

The 20-year-old Bristol-based business has around 4,000 sellers on the platform with a range of about 350,000 products from jewellery, clothes and food to home and garden furnishings.

In her decision to buy a stake, Ms Davies said she wanted to “go right to the top” of the business and met its new owners to help shape the strategy.

Not On The High Street was bought by German private equity firm Executive Equity Partners (EEP) at the start of the year, and hired new chief executive Pascal Schuster to steer its turnaround. It comes after years of declining sales since the pandemic online shopping boom, with total transaction value across the platform at £84.2m in the year to March 2025, compared with £230.2m in the year to March 2021.

The company has been going through a restructuring to reduce business costs and help return to sales growth and profitability.

Mr Schuster told PA: “One of the major missteps in the past was the thought that more products on the site might be better for the customer and ultimately the revenues.

“What we’re now doing is whenever we see a product that is on our site but also on Temu, Shein or wherever – and we use AI to filter that out – then our partner gets a warning.

“If they can’t explain where their product is coming from, then we de-list them.”

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Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s decision to relocate to the Cotswolds is drawing a cautious reception from prospective neighbors in the English countryside region, according to a royal commentator, who said residents are more wary than welcoming as the couple begins house hunting in the area.

Kinsey Schofield, host of the “Kinsey Schofield Unfiltered” podcast, told Page Six Monday that the “chattering class” of the North Cotswolds is “not overly excited” about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex moving into the area. “The Cotswolds can be incredibly welcoming to high-profile people because there’s an unwritten agreement: ‘You don’t make a spectacle of yourself, and neither will we,’” Schofield explained.

According to Schofield, the region’s relationship with celebrity residents typically depends on those residents keeping a low profile once they arrive, a dynamic she said makes Harry and Meghan’s situation somewhat unusual given the level of media attention that has followed the couple throughout their post-royal life. “The irony is that Harry and Meghan are moving to a place that is accustomed to famous people… but completely unimpressed by fame,” Schofield said. “You can bump into Liam Gallagher at the local pub and nobody cares.”

Schofield said she had heard from an insider that other celebrities already living in the area, including David Beckham and Ellen DeGeneres, have settled comfortably into the community precisely because locals do not “bat an eyelid” at their presence, a pattern she suggested Harry and Meghan may struggle to replicate given the scale of press attention that has historically accompanied their movements.

The advice being passed along through local channels has been direct, according to Schofield. “The advice from locals is essentially that Harry should keep a low profile and allow the family to settle quietly into the community,” she said. “One source put it rather colorfully: ‘Shut up for at least eight months!’ and ‘Harry needs to respect the community.’” She summarized the broader local sentiment more bluntly still, saying, “There’s a sense of, ‘Please don’t bring the circus here.’ These people are used to celebrities. Harry and Meghan are different because wherever they go, the headlines tend to follow.”

Despite the guarded reception, Schofield said she believes the couple still has an opportunity to shift local perception over time, though she cautioned that doing so would require genuine discretion. “But that requires restraint,” she said, according to a report from Jingletree. “You cannot ask a community to protect your privacy while simultaneously generating headlines that bring attention to their doorstep.”

Page Six had previously reported that Harry and Meghan were actively house hunting in the Cotswolds, with royal commentator Tom Sykes telling the outlet last week that a friend of Harry’s had indicated earlier this year that the prince was considering the region, potentially near King Charles III’s Highgrove estate. The couple has been linked to a roughly 16.2 million dollar property, though multiple sources have said no formal deal has yet been finalized. In the interim, the family has reportedly been staying in a spare house belonging to a wealthy friend on the outskirts of the Cotswolds since arriving in the UK on Aug. 26.

This is not the first time Harry and Meghan’s presence has generated friction with neighbors in an affluent residential community. Schofield made similar comments about the couple’s Montecito, California, neighborhood in a January 2025 interview with Fox News Digital, saying at the time that some residents there felt Harry and Meghan’s various business ventures “come off as desperation” and struggled to understand why the couple would trade “tiaras in pursuit of Tupperware.” That characterization followed a Vanity Fair report describing the couple as being viewed as “local villains” by some Montecito neighbors, though other sources close to the couple have pushed back on that framing, telling outlets including AOL that Harry and Meghan maintain a “great relationship” with their California community and genuinely care about it.

A representative for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex did not immediately respond to requests for comment regarding the reported reception in the Cotswolds. With the couple’s children expected to begin school in the region this month, Harry and Meghan appear likely to remain under close local and media scrutiny as they work to establish their new base in the English countryside.

It will not, however, be used to offset any potential future increase to council tax.

“At this time, we think it’s better value for the taxpayer to take that £20m underspend and invest it into the services that they want to see improvement in,” Radford said.

The council effectively declared itself bankrupt in 2023 but has recently shown signs of recovery.

Commissioners appointed to help run the authority in 2024 left earlier this year and were replaced with “ministerial envoys”, who have fewer powers.

Radford said an underspend was “quite rare” but was evidence of the council’s improving financial position.

Kirsty L Jones, leader of the Nottingham People’s Alliance, however, said it may have come as a result of “under-delivery of services in the first place”.

“I think when they’ve cut so deeply previously, it’s not going to cause any sort of recovery in the services people expect, paying higher council tax for fewer services as they’ve seen throughout the years,” she said.

“Helping with the cost of living – I don’t know how they can meaningfully do that with £20m and expect to spend it on other things too.”

The use of the underspend funds will be discussed at a meeting of the council’s executive board on Tuesday.

It will then require approval from full council because it constitutes a change to the authority’s annual budget.

A Scarborough bed and breakfast owner has said businesses like his will face an “uneven playing field” if a so-called tourist tax is introduced in North Yorkshire but not in neighbouring East Yorkshire.

A consultation on plans for a visitor levy closed in February and legislation is expected to be brought forward later this year.

James Rusden, who runs Scarborough’s Toulson Court B&B, said if the levy was not England-wide, cost-of-living pressures would mean some visitors would instead go where no tourist tax was being charged.

A government spokesperson said: “We’re listening to businesses in Yorkshire and across the country on this so we make sure money raised is invested in local priorities.”

Rusden said he believed such a levy would act like “a form of taxation”.

“Nobody likes an extra cost and people will complain about it,” he said.

“But if it was an even playing field it would be a lot better as it would be easier to manage and control.

“People are short of money. To put a tax on them coming on holiday makes them think twice about where they go.

“If someone is coming to Scarborough but has to pay a levy each night, but can go to Bridlington where there’s no levy, then that’s where they’ll go.

“It’s unfair and it’ll make it harder for us to compete.”

Since the end of June until 1 September, VAT was reduced on children’s meals served in restaurants, as well as kids’ and family tickets for cinemas, shows, exhibitions and outdoor venues and activities.

Tara Stapley, the general manager of the Big Sheep Farm and Theme Park in Bideford in north Devon, said: “Numbers have increased slightly and I think that is partly down to the summer savings scheme.”

The business reduced ticket prices and added more children’s meals to the menu.

Stapley said there were “lots of people calling and asking about it”.

She said: “People coming have been quite pleasantly surprised by our ticket prices and we’re saying we’re part of the summer savings scheme and they have been very grateful for that.”

Stapley added the scheme could have been publicised more as “a lot of people didn’t know about it”.

She backed any extension of the scheme “100%, if that happened we’d be dancing on the ceiling I think” and said it would be helpful for families and businesses over the October half term and Halloween.

Stapley said days out can be expensive: “We want to make that as affordable as possible and memories that last a lifetime for them.

“Anything that the government can do in extending the scheme would be a huge help not only for us but the people who want to visit our site as well.”

Southwell, also chair of the Cornwall Association of Tourist Attractions, said he had initially thought it was “a great idea”.

He added: “But I know some attractions have not reduced the price but taken that money and used it for their attraction, which, in fairness, is fine because otherwise they might have had to have put their prices up.”

He said a permanent 0% or 5% VAT rate for attractions “would allow all of us to invest for the future”.

Lappa Valley head of marketing Matt Bunt said it was “amazing that families are able to keep a bit more money in their pockets”, but added the “policy was put out in a bit of a rush and not very well publicised by the government”.