Ed Sheeran has won planning permission to build “anti-homeless” railings outside his £8m London home. The pop star, who slept rough in London during the beginning of his career, has been given the green light to install pedestrian gates and cast iron railings outside his home in Kensington and Chelsea despite the original plan being rejected. According to his planning agent, the gates and railings will “prevent opportunities for rough sleeping”. 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 Sheeran’s four-storey home which is a former Victorian brickworks. The plan was originally rebuffed as the four-foot-high railings were considered to look “too domestic” for the former industrial area. However, it was given approval after being changed so it was more in line with the affluent neighbourhood, which is in a conservation area. Sheeran addressed his short stint of sleeping rough in his 2014 book A Visual Journey, saying: “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.’” He later clarified the comments, saying: “Everyone’s saying Ed Sheeran was homeless – I never said that in the book. I went without a bed for some nights, that’s it. It’s just that I didn’t have a place to stay [those nights], so I slept on the Central Line and outside Buckingham Palace.” Sheeran – who has sold more than 26 million albums and 100 million singles worldwide – hit out after details of the planning application were first reported in April. He denied the reports and referred to work he has done with homeless charities Shelter and Crisis. “Dear Natalie Edwards from The Sun newspaper. 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,” he wrote on Instagram. “The reason was to keep the paps that you employ from being on my doorstep. Have a good day.” Published in Daily Times, July 17th 2018.