Digger tears down walls of illegal £200k spa building at home of Captain Sir Tom Moore

A mechanical digger has moved in to pull down a spa building at the home of NHS fundraising hero Captain Sir Tom Moore's daughter.

The machinery arrived at the property at in Marston Moretaine in Bedfordshire at around 9am on Monday and began tearing down walls of the controversial building at around 11.30am.

Part of the roof had been removed earlier in the week and a crane had lifted the spa pool from the property on Friday, three years after the death of Sir Tom on 2 February, 2021.

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.

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.

The foundation is 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 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”.

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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