Demolition teams arrive at Captain Tom Moore’s daughter’s £200,000 spa | UK News

Workers have begun putting up scaffolding around the soon-to-be-demolished spa pool block built by Captain Sir Tom Moore’s daughter.

A flatbed truck was seen arriving at the property in Marston Moretaine, Bedfordshire this morning ahead of the unauthorised spa’s demolition.

Scaffolders could be seen moving metal poles around the building today, just days after piles of building waste were photographed outside Sir Moore’s daughter Hannah Ingram-Moore’s £1.2 million home.

Hannah Ingram-Moore and her husband, Colin, lost an appeal against an order to remove the Captain Tom Foundation Building in the grounds of their property after a hearing in October.

Inspector Diane Fleming ruled in November that the spa block must be demolished within three months, by February 7, and Central Bedfordshire Council said it would be ‘reviewing the onsite position’ the following day, on February 8.

The deadline for the appeal decision to be challenged in the High Court passed without a claim being issued.

Planning permission had initially been granted for an L-shaped building in the grounds of the family home – the planning authority refused a second application in 2022 for a larger C-shaped building containing a spa pool.

Construction of the spa still went forth, however, resulting in Central Bedfordshire Council issuing an enforcement notice in July 2023 requiring demolition.

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’.

But Ms Fleming’s written decision concluded the ‘scale and massing’ of the building had resulted in harm to the grade II-listed Old Rectory – the family’s home.

Sir Captain Tom Moore’s Foundation is already 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 an inquiry in June 2022.

Scott Stemp, representing Ms Ingram-Moore and her husband, said at the appeal hearing that the foundation ‘is to be closed down following an investigation by the Charity Commission’.

In a TalkTV interview with Piers Morgan, Ms Ingram-Moore conceded it was a mistake to lodge the planning application for the spa under the Captain Tom Foundation, saying the building was merely meant to bear his name.

She 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.

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.

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