Evicted or driven out by rent rises, people are turning to caravans as a cheap option. Some love the lifestyle – but for others, it is cold and unsafe
Jake Lee moved into a caravan two years ago and has never been happier. Before buying his static in Moray, Scotland, Lee was a Londoner. Fifteen years earlier, he’d taken out an interest-only mortgage – or, as he puts it, “one of these mortgages that shouldn’t have been given out”. “I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to pay the 100 grand I owed,” he says. Selling up would settle the debt – but leave him very little money to buy or rent elsewhere. Then he stumbled across the idea of living in a caravan park. “Having done it, it is the best thing I’ve ever done. Because living in these places is brilliant!”
It’s certainly more popular than it was: according to the Office for National Statistics, in 2021 there were 104,000 households living in caravans or other temporary structures in England and Wales – 19,000 more than a decade before.
