Spa pool at Captain Tom’s daughter’s home removed as ‘unauthorised building’

The spa pool at the home of Captain Sir Tom Moore’s daughter has been lifted out by crane as the unauthorised complex was demolished. The tub was hoisted up through the open top of the block, whose roof had been removed by workers earlier in the week.

Hannah Ingram-Moore, 53, and her husband, Colin, 66, lost an appeal against an order to remove the Captain Tom Foundation building in the grounds of their property after a hearing in October.

Scaffolders had arrived at the property in Marston Moretaine in Bedfordshire on Tuesday, and a section of the roof was removed the following day.

Insp Diane Fleming ruled in November that the spa block must be demolished within three months – by 7 February – and Central Bedfordshire council said it would be “reviewing the on-site position” on 8 February.

The family had been given planning permission for an L-shaped building in 2021, but instead built a larger £200,000 C-shaped one containing a spa pool.

When they submitted a retrospective application in 2022 for the partially built structure, the planning authority refused it, and they were issued with an enforcement notice in 2023 requiring the demolition of the “now unauthorised building”.

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 Fleming concluded that the “scale and massing” of the building had resulted in harm to the Grade II-listed Old Rectory – the family’s home.

Moore raised £38.9m for NHS Charities Together by walking 100 lengths of his garden before his 100th birthday at the height of the first UK coronavirus lockdown in April 2020. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in the summer of that year and died in February 2021 after testing positive for Covid.

The foundation is the subject of an investigation by the Charity Commission amid concerns about its management and independence from Moore’s family. The charity watchdog opened a case on the foundation shortly after Moore died, and launched its inquiry in June 2022.

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