Throughout the years, Ed Sheeran has become an iconic addition to pop culture, from his beloved early lyrical albums to his more questionable shift to electronic music. However, many people aren’t aware of his past battles against nature: in March of 2018, the English singer faced a legal battle for endangering the great crested newt population living near his estate in Suffolk.
Sheeran had been planning to build a chapel on the grounds of his Suffolk mansion in order to marry his fiancée, Cherry Seaborn, while avoiding paparazzi and crazed fans. However, the singer’s building plans were halted once an ecological survey was conducted to examine the impact the chapel would have on the area’s endangered great crested newt population; Sheeran’s intended building materials for the chapel were of significant environmental concern, as well as the disturbance that the building process would have on the newts’ natural habitat.
The great crested newt, the rarest newt species in the United Kingdom, is notorious for halting any new building projects across Europe. The amphibian is protected by the EU Habitats Directive and two other international agreements, despite having a threat status in Europe of “Least Concern.” Several Brexiters had hoped that the separation from the EU would allow greater freedom for commercial buildings, however, the legislative protection of the species remains the same.
Despite Sheeran’s efforts to marry, the ecologists’ concern for the newt population and the additional legal issues with building a chapel on private grounds caused the building process to drag on for over a year until finally being rejected. In January of 2019, Sheeran’s marriage to Seaborn was reported to be a small ceremony in his Suffolk estate, sans newt-endangering chapel.
Bibliography
Chawk, Indea. “Great Crested Newts Are Still Fully Protected after Brexit!” NatureSpace Partnership, 31 Jan. 2020, https://naturespaceuk.com/great-crested-newts-are-still-fully-protected-after-brexit/.
“Crested Newt – Triturus Cristatus (Laurenti, 1768).” Crested Newt – Triturus Cristatus – (Laurenti, 1768), The European Environment Agency (EEA) , https://eunis.eea.europa.eu/species/814.
“Ed Sheeran Calls in Newt Experts over Chapel Plans.” BBC News, BBC, 11 June 2018, https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-suffolk-44437475.
Krisp, Holger. “Triturus Cristatus.” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Triturus_cristatus.