Captain Tom’s daughter concedes to being reduced to using public spas | UK News

A spa pool block built by Captain Sir Tom Moore’s family will be pulled down after they missed a deadline to appeal against a demolition order.

Hannah Ingram-Moore and her husband Colin applied in 2021 for permission to build a Captain Tom Foundation Building in the grounds of their home in Marston Moretaine, Bedfordshire.

The L-shaped building was given the green light, but the planning authority refused a subsequent retrospective application in 2022 for a larger C-shaped building containing a spa pool.

Central Bedfordshire Council issued an enforcement notice in July requiring the demolition of the ‘unauthorised building’.

The Planning Inspectorate then dismissed a later appeal and gave the family three months to pull it down, with the family given a six-week window in which to challenge that decision.

The latter body has now confirmed they did not file another appeal before the deadline elapsed in December, the Independent reports.

With all avenues of appeal now exhausted they have no option but to demolish the building, it adds.

The Captain Tom Foundation is currently the subject of an investigation by the Charity Commission, amid concerns about its management and independence from Sir Tom’s family.

The charity watchdog opened a case into the foundation shortly after the 100-year-old died in 2021, and launched its inquiry in June last year.

Ms Ingram-Moore was grilled about the pool and spa complex by Piers Morgan during a Talk TV interview days before the appeal.

In it she revealed her family had received death threats amid the huge public backlash to reports it was built using money donated to the charity in his name.

She conceded it was a mistake to lodge the planning application under the Captain Tom Foundation, saying the building was merely meant to bear his name.

Ms Ingram-Moore denied the family had sought to give themselves ‘a little treat’, claiming the paperwork was filed after her father’s death ‘because we wanted it as part of that legacy, and because it was a nice thing to do’.

In the interview she also admitted her family kept the £800,000 profits from three books Captain Tom had written.

She further revealed she was paid £18,000 for attending the Virgin Media O2 Captain Tom Foundation Connector Awards in 2021 — when already being paid as chief executive of the body.

The money was paid to her family firm, Maytrix Group, and she banked £16,000, donating £2,000 to the Captain Tom Foundation.

On the spa complex, Morgan suggested it ‘looks like you are giving yourselves, as a family, a nice little treat, but you are using the Captain Tom Foundation umbrella to justify it’. 

She replied: ‘Yes, and I think everyone can look in hindsight, and our original application, the name was never intended to be the Captain Tom Foundation, it was supposed to be the Captain Tom building.  

‘It got lost in translation and we take responsibility for that, completely.’ 

Asked whether it might be ‘good optics’ to simply get rid of the spa building altogether, Ms Ingram-Moore insisted it had been paid for with ‘all personal money’ and ‘not one penny’ from anywhere else.

Pressed again on whether they should ditch it, she said: ‘Because when we go to appeal, it’s keep it or tear it all down, there isn’t a middle… if we are allowed to keep it, we will talk about what we may be able to do…’

During a hearing in October, chartered surveyor James Paynter, for the appellants, said the spa pool had ‘the opportunity to offer rehabilitation sessions for elderly people in the area’.

In her report, inspector Diane Fleming said: ‘I accept that the appellant’s intentions are laudable; however, it has not been demonstrated in any detail how all of this would work in practice.

‘In the absence of any substantiated information, I find the suggested public benefit would therefore not outweigh the great weight to be given to the harm to the heritage asset.’

Ms Fleming concluded that ‘the actual removal of the building should take no more than three months’ after the appellants argued it would take a year to comply with the order.

Sir Tom raised £38.9 million for the NHS, including Gift Aid, by walking 100 laps of his garden before his 100th birthday at the height of the first national Covid-19 lockdown in April 2020.

He was knighted by the late Queen during a unique open-air ceremony at Windsor Castle in the summer of that year.

He died in February 2021.

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