Former rou gh sleeper Sheeran gets nod for anti-homeless railings
POP superstar Ed Sheeran, who spent nights sleeping rough on the streets of London early in his career, has won planning permission to install “anti-homeless” railings outside his £8m (€9m) London home.
The 27-year old ‘Shape Of You’ singer is now authorised to put up pedestrian gates and cast iron railings outside his converted Victorian brickworks in Kensington and Chelsea, which will “prevent opportunities for rough sleeping” according to his planning agent.
It comes after planners rejected his application to build a flint and stone “ruined Saxon chapel” in the grounds of his Suffolk estate.
The proposal, approved by Kensington and Chelsea Borough Council earlier this month, will also see a key fob system set into a Portland stone plinth outside the pop star’s four-storey home.
The plan was initially rejected as the four-foothigh railings were deemed to look “too domestic” for the former industrial area, but won approval after being amended to be more in keeping with the neighbourhood, which is in a conservation area.
His planning consultant said in the initial application in January last year: “The combination of Portland stone plinth and the railings will help to deter rough sleeping, avoid the collection of rubbish blown on to the concrete surfaced area and provide a desirable level of security without requiring compromises to the internal plan-form of the building.”
After the application was reported in April, Sheeran took aim at a tabloid newspaper, saying: “Your story is b ***** s, I have done lots of work in the past for Crisis and Shelter and would never build railings outside my home for that reason.”