Rishi’s cost of SWIMMING crisis: Millionaire Chancellor faces £13,000-a-year heating bill on new £250,000 outdoor pool being built at his £2M Yorkshire manor

• Rishi Sunak will have to spend £13,000-a-year heating the new swimming pool at his North Yorkshire manor
• The Chancellor is splashing £250,000 on a new pool, gym and tennis courts his home near Northallerton
• It has not gone down well with locals, who’ve branded the bill as ‘disgraceful’ amid rising energy bills
• Mr Sunak also owns a mansion in Kensington and a property in California, and lives in a flat in Downing Street

Rishi Sunak will have to pay £13,000-a-year to keep a new swimming pool at his Yorkshire mansion warm, it is being reported.

It emerged  last year that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was planning on spending £250,000 to build the pool at his £2 million Georgian manor near Northallerton in the county. 

The size of the bill, which is six-and-a-half times the average energy bill for a family home, has been branded ‘disgraceful’ by people in his constituency of Richmond in North Yorkshire.

One trader said they should ‘fill it [the pool] up with mud’, while other said it showed the multi-millionaire politician as being out of touch with the public, the Mirror reports.

Rishi Sunak is building a £250,000 swimming pool, gym and tennis court complex at his Georgian manor in North Yorkshire (pictured) 

The Chancellor, pictured here with his wife Akshata Murthy, has come under fire from constituents who have called him out of touch for building a swimming pool that could cost £13,000-a-year to heat

The L-shaped pool house, which is under construction after permission was given last year, is set to inlcude a hot tub, utility and changing area, and a plant room

The 41-year-old applied to Hambleton council to build an L-shaped pool house, which will include a hot tub, utility and changing area and plant room, last year.

These plans, which included a 12-metre by five-metre swimming pool, were later approved by the council. 

It is thought a pool that size would cost just under £13,000-a-year in electricity to maintain, if it was heated to 25C every day.

That is more than six times the average annual energy bill for a family home under the new price cap, which came into effect in April.

However, the difference could drop even further if Ofgem, the energy watchdog, decides to raise the cap again in the Autumn, which would lead to an increase in energy bills for millions of homes.

Reports it will cost £13,000-a-year to heat did not go down well among members of his constituency, especially after the sharp rise in energy bills which came into effect earlier this month.

Retired steel worker Leslie Porter, 69, told the Mirror: ‘Some people are having to choose between heating and eating. Bills are all rising and he does this. It’s obscene.’

Receptionist Hayley Hadden added: ‘He is a millionaire many times over and it looks like he is rubbing our noses in it. He doesn’t have to worry about paying his bills.’  

Reports it will cost £13,000-a-year to heat did not go down well among members of his constituency, especially after the sharp rise in energy bills which came into effect earlier this month

The multi-millionaire will have to shell out more than six times the average annual household energy bill just to keep the new swimming pool warm

It is one of  a number of properties owned by Mr Sunak and his wife Akshata Murthy, who is the daughter of one of the richest men in India and has recently come under fire for her ‘non-dom’ tax status.

The family had been living in a flat above No 10 Downing Street due to Mr Sunak’s role as Chancellor. 

However, they moved to their £6.6 million mews house in Kensington amid the furore over Ms Murthy’s tax status.

They also own a £5.5 million home in Santa Monica in California.

Rishi Sunak and his wife Akshata Murthy, pictured here in central London, also own a £6.6 million mews house in Kensington

The Sunak family also owns a £5.5 million home in Santa Monica, California (pictured here)

Mr Sunak, who worked as an investment banker for firms California, India and Britain, including Goldman Sachs, is known to use the Yorkshire property when Parliament is not in session and he doesn’t need to be in London.

In the meantime, he had been living in a flat above No 10 with his family, but they have now moved to their Kensington home. 

It is believed that Mr Sunak will remain at the Downing Street flat during the week and will join his wife and family in the mews mansion at the weekends.  

The Sunaks are thought to have decided to move to be closer to their daughter’s school but the timing was unfortunate when removal vans were seen leaving Downing Street just as the Chancellor was facing calls to step down over his wife claiming ‘non-dom’ status to avoid paying full UK tax.

She has since volunteered to pay UK tax on all her worldwide income, though she will keep her non-dom status which allows her to take advantage of India’s zero-rate inheritance tax on her family’s business empire.

Now she is happily ensconced in her four-bedroom, two-bathroom mews home, reportedly bought for cash in 2010 a year after their wedding in India.

Mr Sunak has been contacted for comment.  

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