Four weeks since a caravan was torched on Goodneston Road in north-east Bristol, and still no one has bothered to clear the debris. The black carcass of the caravan remains, dressed with yellow tape reading ‘CRIME SCENE DO NOT CROSS’ and sitting among expired syringes, used laughing gas canisters, a shopping trolley of indiscriminate electrics, and unmarked bottles of off-coloured liquids. The caravans settled on this street some time ago. They brought drugs and left faeces on the pavement and made many local people unhappy. Police think the fire was started deliberately. By luck, nobody died.

In Bristol, caravans are everywhere. They squat on residential roads and outside parks and under bridges and right in the city centre. Bristol Council says it knows of 800 van dwellers, but everyone here thinks there are more. Usually the occupants are people with jobs who cannot afford rent, which rose by 7.5 per cent last year and in expense is second only to London. Other times the vans are homes for waylaid people, seeking shelter from the storms of life.

After the fire on Goodneston Road, the Green-led council successfully applied for a court order to clear the van dwellers from the area. On 19 January, a document was stuck on all the nearby caravans’ doors, requesting the occupants leave within seven days.........

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