When is a swimming pool not a swimming pool? That was the question being asked this week after singer Ed Sheeran was filmed diving into what he has adamantly dubbed a "wildlife pond". Britain's favourite busker is causing a stir in more ways than one, as his much-publicised dive threatens to reignite a bitter planning dispute with his local council and angry neighbours in Suffolk.
Sheeran had previously been granted permission to build his stylish kidney-shaped pool in 2016 because, as he wrote in his planning application, it would "support wildlife conservation" by providing a habitat for "breeding and wetland invertebrates such as dragonflies and water beetles".
But suspicions arose the following year when Sheeran added steps and a jetty to the pool-furnishings that would undoubtedly be more useful to human visitors than to the resident critters. As his neighbors Kenny and Carol Cattee noted, "The so-called wildlife pond would now look more like a swimming pool."
Suffolk Coastal District Council subsequently entered the discussion, warning that the site must not be used for "recreational leisure activities, such as swimming". The council revisited it in 2019 and was satisfied that Sheeran had not breached planning regulations.
However, Sheeran later managed to have the ban on recreational activities lifted and has since regularly used the pond as a swimming pool - much to the anger of those living near his £3.7million estate, known as "Sheeranville". One neighbour accused Sheeran of "making fun" when he saw this latest video, adding: "He may be Mr Nice Guy to everyone else, but he's just doing what he likes."
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Sheeran is far from the first celebrity to make this particular purchase. In recent years, the man-made but organic-looking "status lake" has become the new must-have for an elite range of individuals, from David Beckham to Prue Leith.
"It's all about outdoing the competition and keeping up with the neighbours," explains PR consultant Mark Borkowski. "Now everyone has to have one of these wild lakes because of trendsetters like Beckham. These people have all these lavish properties in the countryside and the pools look beautiful. They're greener because you're not using all those nasty chemicals, so you can show that you're at one with nature.
"They are also easier and cheaper to maintain because you don't have to heat them, so they are more compatible with the UK weather. Whether you are a celebrity or not, we all look at energy costs."
Borkowski points out that these ponds fit in well with several modern trends, such as "the rise of wild swimming and cold water swimming, as popularized by Wim Hof, and how good it is for your physical and mental health".
"Also, everyone wants to show off their eco-friendly credentials now. If you want to appeal to millennials and Gen Z, that's important," he adds. "These pools aren't flashy or blingy - the kind of huge heated pool you saw 10 years ago, with steam coming out of it, doesn't look good now."
But while natural ponds may appeal to these celebrity buyers' genuine eco-fans, they're also souring relations with those who live near them. In addition to Sheeran's recent feud, David and Victoria Beckham defied vociferous objections from their Cotswolds neighbours to build a 4,170-square-metre lake in the grounds of their £6million home in 2021.
In 2022, Fifty Shades of Grey Director Sam Taylor-Johnson became embroiled in a row with neighbours when she and her actor husband Aaron began digging a huge hole for their Somerset lake without planning permission. After villagers objected to the unsightly crater, the council halted the work.
The couple have since submitted a retrospective planning application and a report by consultants PlanningSphere claims the pond is actually intended to "alleviate severe and frequent surface water flooding". The report also promises it will be home to toads and newts and a foraging site for bats, birds, dormice and otters.
Other celebrities jumping on the natural pond bandwagon include Prue Leith, The Great British Bake Off judge, who taught her grandchildren to swim in the 10-foot pool on her Oxfordshire estate, which features an elaborate bridge and pagoda.
Dominic West, who played Prince Charles in The Crown has now built a 30-metre-long lake next to his home in the Cotswolds. The actor enthusiastically explained that swimming in the natural pool "gives me a bulletproof feeling, while of course there is also that direct connection with nature".
We mere mortals can experience that euphoria too - if we're prepared to pay a premium for it. A natural swimming pool from the company Gartenart starts at around £140,000 for a pool up to 100 square metres and goes up to around £400,000 for a pool of 500 square metres. A standard installation takes around 7-12 weeks.
Some, such as The Swimming Pond Company, will first carry out a site assessment, assessing factors such as your property boundaries, soil type, existing structures and the surrounding landscape, before making a bespoke recommendation. A typical 180 square metre pond from them costs around £160,000.
Paul Mercer, the company's managing director, says they were one of the first natural swimming pond companies to set up in the UK in 2006, and have seen a marked increase in orders recently. "There are now around 2,000 natural swimming ponds in the UK and we get up to 300 enquiries a year," he says.
But such a pool is not as painfully eco-friendly as it seems. It is hardly a muddy hole in the ground, left to nature: it still requires a liner, a filtration system, and a circulation pump to prevent algae growth. Most people also add steps and decking.
However, no chemicals, such as chlorine, are needed and the pools are relatively low maintenance. All you need to do is prune any aquatic plants you introduce, scrape off surface debris such as pollen and leaves, and vacuum the floor a few times a year.
As Sheeran's misery illustrates, there are a number of planning regulations to navigate. These wild ponds fall into the same category as swimming pools, meaning that you generally don't need planning permission unless your property is listed. However, different rules apply if you want to build your pool on agricultural land or in an Area of Outstanding Beauty. In those cases, you'll need to apply for planning permission from your local council.
Sheeran's application was a triumph of virtue signalling - but how green are these pools, really? Dr Hannah Robson, Wetland Science Manager at the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust, cautiously welcomes the trend. "We've mapped historic pools in the Severn Vale area and found that there was a 60 per cent decline between 1900 and 2019, representing a huge loss of habitat. Pools were once a vital part of our rural landscapes, used for watering livestock or stocking fish."
Robson says these new man-made ponds need to be as vegetated as possible to be a good habitat, although she admits that "plants may not make it easy to swim in. But it's key to creating habitat diversity - for birds and insects. Birds would probably use it more for feeding than nesting. You wouldn't be very popular with a swan or a duck if you kept swimming right past their nesting site."
The problem is that ponds actually have to go through several successive stages, Robson explains. "When a pond is first dug, it's very open, clear water. Gradually, leaves fall in and it fills with mud and becomes shallower, ending up as a damp depression in the ground. Then you can dig it out and start the cycle again.
"That way you have ponds in different stages that work for different species. But if people artificially keep their ponds in that first clear stage, so that they're nice to swim in, you're only helping a small fraction of the natural population." In other words, it's better than nothing, but it doesn't really address deep-seated environmental problems.
Sheeran, Beckham and their ilk may try to portray owning a luxury private pool as a selfless act of conservation - while skirting planning regulations - but it's a half-measure at best. And that's not even mentioning the visiting invertebrates: it's these celebrity hypocrites who look characterless.
