Ed Sheeran's 'anti-homeless' railings bid approved

Singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran. Photo / AP

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 £8 million ($15.6 million) London home.

The 27-year old Shape of You singer is now authorised to install 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 bid to build a flint and stone "ruined Saxon chapel" on his Suffolk estate.

The London plan's 1.2m-high railings were at first deemed to look "too domestic" for the former industrial area, but won approval after being amended to be more in keeping with the neighbourhood.

Apex Planning Consultants said in the initial application last year: "The ... railings will help to deter rough sleeping, avoid the collection of rubbish ... and provide the applicant with a desirable level of security without requiring compromises to the [building's] internal plan-form."

In his 2014 book A Visual Journey, the singer-songwriter wrote: "There was an arch outside Buckingham Palace that has a heating duct and I spent a couple of nights there. That's where I wrote the song Homeless."

After details of his planning application were reported in April, Sheeran told a tabloid newspaper: "Your story is bollocks, I have done lots of work in the past for Crisis and Shelter and would never build railings outside my home for that reason. The reason was to keep the paps that you employ from being on my doorstep."