112: Van dwelling versus #vanlife: the reality of life on the road

Matt and Fraser hit the road to explore the reality of "van life", going beyond the glossy image often presented on social media. To what extent is van dwelling really a choice, and how easy – or otherwise – is it to live sustainably in a vehicle?

This episode is the second in our series focusing on projects funded by the Scottish Research Alliance for Energy Homes and Livelihoods (EHL). Our guest is Dr Louise Reid, Senior Lecturer in Geography and Sustainable Development and Co-Director of the St Andrews Centre for Critical Sustainabilities (StACCS). Along with Dr Rachel Hunt and Dr Rachel Creaney, Louise is part of an EHL-funded project exploring people's lived experiences of van dwelling in Scotland, in an attempt to fill an evidence gap on the topic.

Follow EHL on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/energy-homes-livelihoods/

Sign up to the EHL newsletter: https://energy-homes-livelihoods.us17.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=95f64f8471e335ca66577e8ac&id=8f3acb33ed

Links:

Scottish Research Alliance for Energy Homes and Livelihoods: https://www.energy-homes-livelihoods.ac.uk

Dr Louise Reid: https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/geography-sustainable-development/people/lar9

Van Dwelling – An Evidence Mapping Workshop: https://www.energy-homes-livelihoods.ac.uk/2024/08/23/vandwelling-home-is-where-you-park-it-an-evidence-mapping-workshop/

‘They lump us all together’: van-dwellers and homeowners clash over life near Bristol Downs (The Guardian): https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jul/15/van-dwellers-homeowners-clash-life-near-bristol-downs

Transcript

Fraser: Hello and welcome to Local Zero. I'm Fraser Stewart. 

Matt: And I'm Matt Hannon. And this is the second episode in our miniseries showcasing projects supported by the Scottish Research Alliance for Energy Homes and Livelihoods, or EHL for short.

Fraser: EHL brings together researchers from a range of different fields with the idea being to break down silos and encourage better sharing of information. And that's all in the name of helping us to move towards a more sustainable, net zero Scotland. You can find out more about EHL and sign up to their newsletter at energy-homes-livelihoods.ac.uk.

Matt: And in this episode, we're hitting the road to explore the reality of #vanlife, going beyond the glossy image oft-presented on social media to explore questions such as to what extent van dwelling really is a choice, and how easy or otherwise it is to live sustainably on the road. 

Fraser: We'll be talking to Dr Louise Reid, Senior Lecturer in sustainable Development and Geography at the University of St Andrews. Louise has been part of an EHL-funded project exploring van dwelling in Scotland to fill what they see as an evidence vacuum on the topic. 

Matt: Before we get started, a reminder to follow us on LinkedIn if you'd like to stay up-to-date with all things Local Zero. That's also the place to share all of your thoughts, questions, and suggestions. Just search for “Local Zero podcast”. We always love to hear from you. 

Fraser: Well most of the time. And wherever you listen, please remember to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. 

Louise: I am Dr. Louise Reid I'm a Senior Lecturer at the University of St Andrews in the School of Geography and Sustainable Development, and my background is a social scientist. I'm a human geographer by training, interested in people's imaginations and experiences of home.

Matt: Thank you very much, Louise, and welcome to Local Zero. It's a real pleasure to get stuck into this topic and it's a space that I think we've discussed a little bit, uh, between the producers, between the hosts. It's certainly something I've been keen to cover, and I think maybe we'll just start right at the beginning. Listeners may be more familiar with the lifestyle branding or hashtag of van life that we often hear so much and see on social media.

Um, and I think my rudimentary understanding of that is that's much more sort of, you know, tourism based. It's a point of people heading out into the great unknown in their camper van or whatever it might be. But “van dwelling" is a term and a topic that maybe our listeners are less familiar with. So maybe if we just begin with what is van dwelling? Um, what different forms does it take? 

Louise: I think it's a really interesting question, and that's one of the things we've been looking at for the past year. I am somebody who has a van. I use it for recreation. I've occasionally stayed in it for work, but I wouldn't classify myself as somebody who lives in it anywhere approaching a a permanent basis. I think one of the things we've found as we've researched this is that there's a lot of diversity about what Van living is, right? So that those hashtags, #vanlife, van living, are really popular on social media, online, on YouTube.

There are countless people who, um, you know, make a living out of living and sharing their experiences about living in vans, but we just don't actually have that much rigorous research about what that's like, particularly in Scotland. So that kind of what caught our interest initially was this, there seems to be this contemporary phenomenon, but how much do we actually know about what really happens?

So that's where we started. We've actually increasingly moved on to start to use the term “vehicular dwelling, to try and capture that variety of van – you know, what is a van? Is it a motor home? Is it a camper van? Is it a commercial van that's been converted? Is it a van that hasn't been converted, that somebody just has a mattress on and parks in B&Q car park overnight?

Is it a van that's almost a car, a caravan? You know, I think there's a real diversity of vehicle types that we actually are only really scraping the surface of, of trying to understand what that looks like. We've as a research group, so myself, um, Rachel Hunt at Edinburgh, Rachel Creaney at James Hutton Institute, and Gemma Teal at Glasgow School of Art.

We've increasingly started to use the term “dwelling” to kind of differentiate between those lifestyle, more touristic bases of van life, van living, that you see on social media, you know, using that term “dwelling” to try and get to more of that idea of living in vehicles on a more permanent basis, perhaps, to capture the idea that it's not always that pursuit of freedom and kind of way of living beyond conventional kind of nine-to-five jobs and campsite basis, right?

That there's actually a much broader diversity of what that experience can be for people who dwell in place. And that academic idea of dwelling, the kind of theoretical basis, really encourages us to look at the connections between things. So, you know, dwelling isn't just about the vehicle and the experience in that vehicle, but how do you connect to that place where, where you are, the people around that place, that environment.

So the use of that word dwelling gets us to think about those broader relationships between vehicles and how people use them to live in than “van life” and “van living” does. 

Matt: Hmm. So, so in a sense that there's, there's more of sort of permanence associated with van dwelling. But, but that's not necessarily to say that people aren't gonna be mobile and, and nomadic in terms of how they live, but, but this is, this is their primary residence. Is that maybe a, a useful distinction?

Louise: Yeah. So Bristol Council, I don't know if you've seen any of the, um, news articles about that. Bristol Council has really led the way, they've had some big controversies with vehicular dwellings, and they've now developed something called the Bristol Model that they're using to try and deal with the issue of vehicular dwelling.

And they actually give a definition, um, which we've adopted, which is that, um, vehicular dwelling is the act of living in, in a vehicle – and they have a broad definition of what that vehicle is – on a temporary or a permanent basis. But the key thing in their definition is that that vehicle is that person's primary or only place to live.

Matt: Mm-hmm.

Fraser: Got it.

Louise: So the distinction comes from the idea of it being their primary place to live, or only place to live, rather than what the vehicle is necessarily, or kind of the duration of that. So that's quite a helpful definition I think for, for us. 

Fraser: So we, we think often, I, I guess we've, we've pointed to, we think about van life, we think about – I’ve got so many mates, early thirties who out of nowhere, seemingly, decided they were gonna get kit out a van as a bit of a project and they were gonna go traveling a few months of the year maybe, or go on a big trip.

But it sounds like when we're talking about the, the dwelling side of it, it's not just about, or not solely about, exploration or getting out and about. Can you speak more, Louise, about the diversity of, of motivations behind van dwelling or vehicular dwelling as we understand it? 

Louise: Yeah, so there, there are lots. I think this is why it's such an interesting research project, that diversity of experience, but also of motivation. So we know that in the UK at least, issues around, you know, housing crisis, unaffordable rents, access to appropriate accommodation in the right place, issues around who owns land, how available land is for people, issues of labour market patterns.

So maybe it is possible now to work more remotely, with digital working. So there's a whole range of different things which are feeding into this phenomenon that, um, help to explain those motivations. As you say, sometimes it is, you know, purely in pursuit of adventure and freedom. Other people, it's kind of a last resort, right, for them. 

There is nowhere else for them to live. And that's certainly kind of an example that I just talked about in Bristol. That tends to be the case there. So, you know, rents, house prices are the second highest in the UK out of, after London. So I think there are a range of different motivations for people who are now living in vehicles.

Matt: And Louise, is this becoming more or less popular? I, I think if, if one is to track and trend kind of, you know, hashtags around van life, I think it's fair to say, and, and, and I think you mentioned, uh, COVID before, uh, Fraser and I certainly talking this, this sort of boom seem to happen particularly in the UK and Scotland around, you know, can't travel abroad, gonna get something with wheels and try and have a bit of fun on my doorstep. Obviously this is a very different issue we're talking about, talking about people's primary, uh, residence. Has it become more popular? And if so, you know, in recent years, what, what's kind of driving that then? 

Louise: It's actually very, very difficult to track. So there are some places where if it's been maybe a challenge or quite a lot of controversy, as in Bristol, they are tracking it. There are other places where there's just very limited way of trying to access those data. So there's a couple of ways to answer this. One is that you look at social media accounts, right? So if you look at Google, do a search on Google there, uh, currently there are 35 million hits come back when you search “van living”, right?

So across kind of digital social media, you know, you can look up Instagram accounts with, you know, 200,000-plus followers. But official statistics and robust statistics are hard to find. So across the UK um, the government collects trends around homelessness data. So you might think that would be a good place to look.

And within the category of hidden homelessness, that's where you find data about vehicular dwelling, but it's lumped in with lots of other forms of homelessness like sofa surfing or overcrowding. So it's actually very difficult to disaggregate what that particular form of dwelling looks like. And the statistical trends for that over time just don't exist.

We don't have these data for Scotland, but again, I'm gonna keep referring to Bristol because they are, you know, they are quite ahead of the game on some of this. So by their estimates, in 2020, when they started recording this, they had approximately 150 vehicular dwellers in Bristol. Now that's a kind of 24-mile square area, so a relatively small area.

And then, um, I had a quick check of their website this morning. So their latest estimate from 2025, um, say that they have between 650 and 680 vehicular dwellings. And they also have that issue of measuring. So people don't always want to be counted. They don't always want the authorities to know that they're there. They are mobile, they can move. Right. So I think it's actually quite a difficult thing to try and really get a grasp on, you know, prevalence. 

Matt: I guess un unless you can kind of identify, you know, what the trend is and where that's happening, it's then difficult to go about trying to explain why. But maybe if, before we get into kind of broader discussions about what's driving this trend, I mean, you point to the, the statistics around Bristol as an example. Is this a very localised phenomenon? I mean, you've mentioned Bristol a couple of times. Are we seeing this across the UK and elsewhere? 

Louise: There are academic papers about vehicular dwelling, van life, all over the world. So, uh, I think it particularly comes to prominence when there are controversies as there have been in Bristol. But otherwise, a lot of the time it can be quite localised. But I think we just don't really know is, is the answer. You know, in Scotland we have press and popular media accounts of the impact of the North Coast 500 and what that's meant in terms of more camper vans and motor homes. A lot of that is, uh, a lot of what we hear about are tourists, right?

But dig within that, and there are people who are seasonal workers, who are employed because of tourism industry, who are living in quite rural bits of Scotland on the west coast, because of those influx of tourists. So it's, it's not, it's actually quite tricky to disaggregate exactly who's doing the vehicular dwelling on what basis and what their motivations are, without going to speak to them.

Matt: Yeah.

Fraser: Yeah. It sounds like there, there's almost a with two layers to it or two tiers to it, insofar as you can track the Instagram followers and the, the people who are doing it maybe out of, uh, choice or out of preference or for adventure. We can see that. But the people who are maybe more doing it out of necessity or out of, uh, pursuing employment opportunities, et cetera, it's just much harder to, to pin down.

Louise: Yeah. And, and the two are not, it's not a binary either. So you could move between those groups.

Fraser: Sure.

Louise: Potentially, depending on how your circumstances change. One could give you the taste for another if you're circum –, you know? So I think that's what we're trying to do in our project is to really show that, to get beyond those no offence, Fraser, but some of those simplistic understandings of what these experiences might be like, you know, this binary thinking or it's you're either doing it for this reason or that. 

Matt: Yeah, I mean, I, I wonder whether, and this is, this is how exciting, uh, the, the, the WhatsApp chat is between the, the Local Zero, uh, podcast hosts. Uh, I got a message from, uh, Jen Roberts, our other host last week, saying, “I've crunched the data, the Scottish Census 2021”, that she'd actually looked, and one of the categories there does cover, I think somebody, or you know, a resident who might fit the van dwelling mould is “caravan or other mobile or temporary structure”.

So there was almost seven-and-a-half-thousand people residing there. Does that satisfy, uh, a kind of definition or not? Again, is that just looking at another kind of category and saying, well actually, you know, that's, there's a lot in there that may not necessarily fit the definition you've presented.

Louise: Yeah, and I, I think as well, I mean categories are categories are categories, right? You've gotta think about who, why they're there and what work they're doing. But even within that description there, you know, temporary, temporary accommodation that could cover bothies. You know, in Scotland we have a long tradition of a variety of different sort of built forms that people might occupy.

It also covers sheds, for instance. So it doesn't actually tell us that much about vehicle living in particular. And the other thing to say is that, you know, self, census are, people complete them themselves. One of the issues we've not talked about yet is how vehicular dwellers see themselves in relation to those vehicles, right?

They're not vehicles necessarily, they're homes, right? So that's one of the issues around homelessness data is that people who live in vans may not actually consider themselves to be homeless because they have their van as their home, right? So there's all kinds of complexities in those definitions that are really interesting to unpick.

Matt: Yeah, and there's a whole lot of discussion there about language, about, you know, if you're looking at a, you know, a canal boat, it could, could be a sort of house boat, but do we have house vehicle as a sort of covered terminology?

Louise: Exactly, exactly. Yeah. 

Matt: Yeah. Okay. Right. Well look, I think there's a broader discussion that I know Fraser and I are keen to get into. It's just to understand maybe if we assume, and this, I think from some of the data you've suggested, there is a growing number of people that that may be considered van dwellers. That's up for debate. But maybe if we assume that, what is driving this at the moment? Why are we seeing in certain places, let's take Bristol, maybe, is there any sort of hypothesis around why more people are maybe adopting this as their primary residence?

Louise: If you look at the Bristol reports, and they've written quite a few, a lot of it, they think, comes down to, um, housing. So the housing crisis, cost of housing, availability of housing, um, and people's inability to access the type of housing that they need. And, and vehicles, living in vehicles, being some available, affordable alternative.

Matt: That isn't surprising to me, given where rents are. I mean, there's news just out last week, you know, average monthly rent going up, you know, hundreds of pounds in some instances. House prices seem to sort of inexorable rise year on year, regardless of whichever crisis – in fact, it seems the deeper we are in crisis, the more house prices rise, right, 'cause it's a bit like gold in, in some respects.

Are there any other factors that are maybe driving this, beyond access to housing and the affordability thereof? Is there anything else that's come up in your research or areas that you are, you're maybe keen to explore further? 

Louise: I think in Scotland in particular, labour market patterns are quite interesting. I've already mentioned this idea of seasonal working, so we also have a tradition in Scotland of workers on the land, foresters, agricultural pickers of vegetables and fruits. You know, those kinds of temporary seasonal workers who maybe live in vehicles at certain points of the year or in certain places.

You know, so I think in Scotland in particular, thinking about labour market patterns and what that means. A more recent evolution of that is around digital working, perhaps, so the ability to, to work remotely and to be able to live somewhere where it's not as expensive to live, but to still, maybe you might go to a city centre one day a week or every fortnight, so you don't need to live in the city. So I think labour markets and changing labour market patterns.

I think other motivations, you know, I mean we've talked a lot about social media, but many of those accounts are actually quite aspirational and there's a lot of information about how to do it and you know, YouTube accounts of how people deal with how to convert a van or, you know, these groups that talk about, um, places to stay and share information about what kind of a good location to be able to access services and how do you cope with getting posts when you don't have an address. And you know, I think there's that kind of online environment is sometimes quite supportive amongst those types of communities.

And I think that may be also encourages people. Relationship breakdowns as well, is often talked about as a reason for, you know, maybe people have got to move out of a home because of a, a relationship breakdown and because they now have a single income that might affect their ability to access housing or services or whatever. So there's, there's a real diversity of motivations, I think.

Fraser: I'm interested in a little bit more on the Bristol example, not of its own accord. If we can drill down, I guess beyond the, the motivations into the experience of it and the potential challenges that might arise. What was the reason that the council in Bristol decided they had to give attention to vehicular dwelling?

Was it causing localised problems? Were the people living in their vehicles experiencing particular problems and, and challenges? What is the impact, I guess, of, of that type of living and the increased prevalence of it? 

Louise: Yeah, so that's one of the things we are really interested in as a research project. You know, we're, what we’re focused on now, on the work that we do is about that issue of experience, rather than motivation. Motivation's quite well covered and it's quite diverse, but the experience of people can vary. And I think we have the examples from Bristol. We have much less of that in Scotland, but drawing on Bristol, part of it has been about local opposition.

So one of the really popular places in Bristol for people to stay in vehicles is on the edge of some really lovely countryside and one of the most expensive streets and neighbourhoods in Bristol. So, um, residents in those places have been up in arms about people coming and living in their vehicles right outside their houses, on their streets, issues of accessing their drives and, and all the rest of it.

But for the vehicular dwellers, at least according to the Bristol report, there is also some concern about the quality of life for those people, right? Maybe in vehicles that aren't actually that suitable or have been modified, are poor quality. Um, there's issues around access to services, so how do you get water?

What do you do with your waste? How does a council help with the infrastructure of those services? And Bristol have now actually put together a plan for how to deal with it, that's quite a compassionate plan with vehicular dwellers and how, how they may be treated. They've set aside sites, places for people to park up.

So I think it kind of depends, but I think that experience is really interesting. If you agree, accept, that there's a real diversity of motivation and vehicle types and people, then there's gonna be a real diversity of experience. And I think that some of that could be really quite miserable, right? There are accounts of people living in mattresses in the back of a commercial van, parking in B&Q, right?

All the way to people in really expensive motor homes who, you know, money is no object. And I think that's what's tricky, is we don't have enough of a sense of what that experience is like, and we have almost no understanding, in an academic research basis, of what that's like in Scotland in particular.

Matt: There's so many questions I, I have around this and I think maybe just an, an initial reflection is this seems to have caught some councils off guard and, you know, in terms of the infrastructures that are, are maybe in place. Prior to this, you know, it isn't like the US where there's maybe more of a, more of a tradition of van dwelling or mobile living.

You have trailer parks and you have these kind of, some of these infrastructures that are, are, are possibly, you know, more set up for this. The UK, less so, and I can, I can see how these tensions have arisen and I think in the case of Bristol, I think it was a green space or a park where some of these vans were, were located.

So, you know, does, does this sort of infrastructure resolve the issue or does it just relocate? Because I guess, you know, underpinning this is, is actually the issue is that people are having to live in vans in the first place. Right? And it might be a choice for some many of the reasons that you've said, but for those who aren't, uh, choosing that, that it's not necessarily resolving, but it's, it's relocating.

But putting that to one side, I'm really interested in the community aspect of this. So is, does any of the research that you've come across speak to kind of new communities emerging through this? Communities of place, but also communities of practice. You know, I’m, a quick swatch at Google and there's 3 million followers of van dwelling on Reddit alone.

You've talked about some of the Instagram communities, social media communities. Is, is community, is the sense of community starting to emerge from this? Even one on, in the face of adversity? Is this something that you've come across in your research?

Louise: It's not something that we've researched. Aside from, as you've done, obviously spending a lot of time looking at social media and other types of accounts. There does seem to be emerging a community of practice.

In some ways, that depends how people identify themselves, right? So “van life” as a hashtag, right, it is, is quite popular, but you might not be in a van, right? You might be in a car. So the ways that people come together around these particular topics, especially if on social media, is around what term is used and how they identify themselves.

That said, there is, as I've said already, there is a lot of information out there. I follow several groups on Facebook as a van user myself, and many of those groups will share information about best places to park, what do you do when you don't have a letterbox in your vehicle, how do you get your post?

What do you do with the DVLA? Right. How do you register your vehicle? What do you do with insurance? What do you do when you need to access your GP? Now, these types of communities, they exist. I think, especially in that digital online space, they tend to be around the practice rather than about the location.

But there are places in Scotland that are more place-based, right? So there are collections across Scotland of where, um, vehicular dwellers will come together and support each other. So there are communities of place, but I think probably most of the community is of practice, largely. Of course, Scotland has a long tradition of different types of travelling communities.

There are, um, residential parks, you know, particularly, uh, retirement parks. So I think there are these types of communities. I think they probably are both community of place and practice, but what's inspired us, I suppose, to think about this as a research topic, is that community of practice that seems to be emerging and is not just emerging, but it's huge, you know, really prolific on social media.

Fraser: So listening to the experience of different places, some of the themes around things like, uh, local opposition, for instance. Listeners will be familiar with some of these conversations, particularly as they pertain to, uh, the Gypsy and Roma traveller communities, for instance. Are there any parallels to be drawn or lessons to be learned on the research that's happened with those communities, for this new sort of growing prevalence of, of vehicular dwelling as we understand it now?

Louise: Yeah. So Gypsy-Roma traveling communities have a history in, in Scotland, as do other types of cultural travellers around, uh, Showman, um, Showpeople, uh, New Age travellers, lots of different types of groups. The distinction with Gypsy and Roma Traveller communities is that they are an ethnic group that has legal protections. So they're quite distinctive in a way that other types of vehicular dwellers aren't. They don't have those same legal protections, but there are still in vehicular dwelling communities that aren't necessarily Gypsy or Roma – those kind of traditions – there are still some shared, uh, experiences.

You know, we can see accounts of people feeling discriminated against or, um, being unable to access particular services or getting some negative feedback from people in the community around where they want to park. So there, there are some similarities in experience in those ways, particularly, some shared experiences around those issues, but not necessarily so.

Um, I think we don't really know. We have, we have good understanding, um, in some areas of research around the experiences of Gypsy-Roma traveller communities. We have much less about this more modern phenomenon of people living in vehicles who aren't part of those established traditions.

Matt: And I guess one of the things that has maybe changed more in recent years is, it's an emphasis on, on sustainability in all of its forms, not least environmental. But what, you know, when we talk about van dwelling, but – and van life, to some extent. But van dwelling I, I see there are really interesting questions when we consider sustainability in, in the round.

So they're kind of the, the social, the environmental, and the economic. We've maybe started to touch upon some of the social sustainability aspects. Happy to unpack these further, but also really keen to unpack the environmental sustainability impacts. Now, again, this can take a number of, uh, forms.

We've, we've talked, certainly in some of the testimony and commentary I've, I've listened and read and watched about this is con-, some of the local concerns have been around maybe the fact that there isn't the infrastructure to take away some of the, the, you know, the, the waste and litter from these places. There’s also the kind of, for some people it's an aesthetic impact in these green spaces.

But, uh having spent a limited amount of time living in a van, I'm acutely aware, um, of my environmental footprint. Everything I need has to come with me in that van, and then I have to dispose and manage of that in some way. So, again, my mindset totally changes. I'm kind of in a space capsule. It's the best way to kind of describe it.

So is there anything that's coming out from your work or, or something you'd like to explore further about the sustainability implications of this, for better or for worse? 

Louise: It's a great question, and that's what sparked the initial interest in this. So like you Matt, I was at a two, three day event at Loch Insh at the start of 2024 around that Sustainable Households theme, and our collaboration with my other uh, researchers came out of that event, right? And the topic of that event was exactly around sustainable households. Um, so that question of sustainability was right there from the outset for us. I have a previous PhD student, Megan Carras, who a few years ago looked at the tiny house movement in the US, and I think in scholarship around environmental impact of housing, a lot of it can be traced to size. So the size of a house, the size of a dwelling… 

Matt: Yeah. 

Louise: Correlates with the impact, the environmental impact it has. And so when we were at the workshop in, uh, January, 2024, we started to talk about, well, actually, if we're really interested in sustainability and these questions of environmental sustainability in particular, maybe we could think about the size of homes and houses, and maybe we should be thinking about smaller homes and houses.

And that's where we really started, I think, making about that connection between environmental impact of home, housing and, uh, size and then moved on to, through various different discussions about small houses, tiny homes, huts, bothies, um, moved on to thinking about vehicles in particular. As somebody who uses their van, I exactly share your experiences, Matt. You're thinking about your resources all the time in your van. Your power is limited, your water is limited. You need to think about where your waste is going to go. Um, there are quite strict regulations around disposal of waste. And so where you're able to do that is quite hard, sometimes. In Scotland in particular, if you're somewhere rural, that can be quite tricky, but equally, somewhere quite urban where there aren't places to dispose of that.

So right from the outset we were kind of thinking about those questions of resource use in relation to the size of, of a dwelling and what that means and how that experience of being in a vehicle changes those discussions about resources for a dweller in a way that it might not necessarily if you were in a house.

There's also other things about food, right? So how do you get food, 'cause you've got a limited place to store it. Do you have somewhere to park next to a shop where you can go and get food? You know, so all kinds of different resources, beyond those sort of initial ideas around water, power, waste, come into play.

Uh, I've got two little kids who come in our van and even they think about resources. Oh, you know, we see the water meter in the van. Oh, we're running out of water. Or you know, the toilet's getting full. So it's really relatable, those questions of resource use when you're in a vehicle. And that's one of the things that we're starting to look at. And we've got a new PhD student who'll be starting to look at that in particular in October. 

Matt: I also think like how space is at a premium as well, so it's not just resource, but you're acutely aware of your footprint. Physical footprint. Um, and I guess, you know, particularly taking up a car parking space as well, and depending, so yeah, I think there's something that we can all take from that. To, to listeners, I think spending a weekend in a van really does help you look at the world in a slightly different way after it. 

Louise: I, I think there are also other types of environmental sustainability issues around not just what happens in that van, but that wider relationship with place. So when, we had a workshop almost a year ago where we invited a range of stakeholders and, and vehicular dwellings to come and talk about their experiences.

And, um, we asked people right at the start to draw a picture of what, um, vehicular dwelling meant to them. And so many of them put the vehicle and then the surrounding landscape and nice trees and um, or at the beach. So I think there's also not just about the resources people use in a van, but there's also those wider issues about how people connect with place, with particular types of environment, with questions of, you know, what they see as natural, um, as respite from non-natural places. So I think there are also these wider issues that we can get into around environmental sustainability, beyond simply the resources that are involved. 

Matt: So that, that point of connectivity, uh, and relatability with, with, with place. I, I find that very compelling. And I, yeah, I guess I kind of, well, it's, maybe it's a question for, for the next time, but how living in a, a van or a vehicle maybe changes that versus being in a, in a brick and mortar. Um, I mean, is there anything that does occur to you there about if and why we relate to place differently?

Louise: So that'll be something that the PhD student explores as part of their studies, but I think there's an ability to move in the same way that you wouldn't move bricks and mortar. And maybe on a more frequent basis. There's an ability to maybe get closer, so you can park right on the beach or right next to the beach. Or you can park under a tree or several trees in a woods, or at the top of a hill, in places where you might not actually build a house, necessarily. Um, so I think maybe the relationship in that way is different. Um, it's a bit more immediate, potentially.

Fraser: So with that in mind, Louise, you have lots of research underway, a new PhD student exploring some of the, the key themes around vehicular dwelling. How do we understand this phenomena better?

Louise: I think at the forefront of our research and our approach is that we shouldn't do any of this without people that have lived experience of these phenomenon. So the idea that vehicular dwellers – nothing about us, without us. Any kind of research has to really have these people at the heart of it. So many of the methods that we used in, in the workshop. In the future research that we plan to do, really started from that ethos and are thinking about how do we do this in collaboration?

Um, how do we work not only with vehicular dwellers, but obviously we centre their experiences, but also with the range of other stakeholders – landowners, um, regulators, people from local communities. And I think in this type of research, when there are a lot of questions, making sure we capture those types of views and that we ensure that lived experience and those accounts are at the heart of it in shaping what we do is absolutely critical.

Matt: Well, thank you Louise, and all the best with your future research. We look forward to maybe having you back, colleagues, to tell us a little bit more, uh, this really, really interesting seam of research though. Until then, thank you. 

Louise: Thank you very much.

Fraser: So Matt, a fascinating discussion, I'm sure you would agree. 

Matt: Yeah, absolutely. It's something that we've been wanting to talk about for a little while now. Okay, what did I learn? I think this is a new issue, or at least this wave of people, either by circumstance or choice, living in vehicles, is something that, um, you know, this time around is, is quite different and it's driven by this particular set of circumstances.

Well, there's a, there's, firstly what I learned is that there's so many different reasons, motivations. Big part of it is housing, right? I mean, housing is a perennial issue, but it is much more acute than it was 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago. It’s, it’s getting worse, and this is one of the symptoms. But there are numerous motivations.

One of the things I found most interesting was about labour, and whether it is some of the more, um, non place-based or, or, or mobile, movable feast-type employments. I think a couple that occurred to me there was fruit picking, but also on the other end of the spectrum is people just working remotely. You know, this is something where either by the opportunity to live in a more mobile way or having to live in a more mobile way is the motivation. So that's something I really take away. The motivations are, are, are, are plural. 

Fraser: I think that was the key takeaway for me as well, was when I think about it, and it came out in the episode. We think about the Instagram influencers and we think about the hashtag van life and mates of, of ours, you know, we move in circles of people who like to travel and get outdoors and sometimes for extended periods at a time. But this example from from Bristol and other places where there's a a housing motivator or an economic motivator, not always for the best. There's a bit of necessity to it, appreciating that it's not binary. You choose to or you have to, but I think that side of it is something that I hadn't certainly hadn't considered, uh, quite so much in the past. So I feel like I learned a lot from that.

I think there's a, the point that we got onto towards the end, and I think it's one of these TBC, once Louise and the team get, really get into the research, uh, this point around connectivity and place. I feel like there's maybe another dimension to it. So this idea that you're moving around, you're not as connected to the bricks and mortar, what your community is and what your place is looks different for different people, um, who are, you know, living in their vehicles in one capacity or another.

But I think about sort of social connectivity as well, as in wider society. Is there a, an element of modern times where we're just a bit less community focused than maybe we were in the sixties and seventies and the eighties, where people aren't quite held together in the same way? We're a little bit more individual. I'm interested to tease out some of these, some of these bigger picture questions as well. 

Matt: I think that's a really interesting point. So if, you know, maybe step away from the, the, the labour point is, um, labour in terms of as employment, uh, that maybe there are other reasons. So, so maybe, uh, for example, people are having children later, so, you know, or, or, or not having kids at all.

Uh, maybe it's because they're not having to be you know, present at a place of worship once a week or twice a week or whatever it might be in the way that, you know, certainly generations past in, in my family, they’d be at church every Sunday. So, you know, there, there's lots there about whether it is about opportunity that's creating possibilities, but also sort of by necessity as well.

So, you know, this heady blend of the two is creating a phenomenon around this. I think maybe other point is that the data's really bad. We don't actually know it is, you know, a, a trend, or at least we, maybe we do, but in a quite localised sense. And that the data, I mean we always say this on the pod, right?

You know, we need better data. And I think around this is, is really important. I don’t know, and the last thing maybe phrase it from, from my standpoint is the environmental. So you know, your connectivity to place and your connectivity to resource and your connectivity to space. These feel important precursors to acting sustainably. And you know what, as I said, and I, I I, maybe only half joking, do, listeners should spend a weekend in a van. This has certainly changed their mindset, I think, about how much they consume and how much waste they produce, too.

Fraser: Yeah. I genuinely found that conversation a little bit stressful where I was thinking about, oh, I need to keep an eye on the water in the van, and we need to keep an eye on the waste and make sure that we're plugged in someplace that we can get rid of that uh, you know, sustainably and in line with regulations and not upset anyone and not get fined or not get a charge or – all of that. I've found a little bit, a little bit stressful to listen to. But then the other side of that is more sustainable living, is understanding how you live just now and how you use your resources and interact with your space. And I think, I think your point, Matt, maybe it's an open challenge to listeners, is spend a weekend in a van and see how you, see how you fare. 

Matt: What ordinarily happens is the inside of the van becomes one big bin, if you're not careful. And that's, you know, that's basically it. It starts as a store cupboard, but then becomes a bin so that, or you know, don't van like I do, basically. But the, the other point I, I thought was interesting was, and certainly in the case of Bristol, if I, if I understood correctly, some of this tension there is where these, uh, vehicle vehicular dwellers are locating in a green space.

Close proximity to some of the wealthier, uh, homes there. Now there's a whole range of issues that they flagged, which I, I, I could speak to, but I can't speak personally to and, and about the kind of, you know, the robustness of those complaints. But it did occur to me, I think the, this kind of environmental footprint of many of these people in, people in the van, it's probably gonna be a lot lower than the folk opposite, you know, in, in these, these, these big homes.

And it's not really criticising; it's just saying, well, you can point at something and say “that looks messy and it's dirty”. And those are some of the, the concerns that have been raised about litter and about, you know, sort of human waste and all the rest. But actually at the grand scheme of things, at the planetary level, maybe they're having much less of an impact actually, than the six-bed semi-detached at the, the end of the park.

Fraser: Yeah. Yeah.

Matt: That’s me in controversial mode, Fraser. But, um… 

Fraser: Yeah, no, I think it's a fair point and I think it's why the, the, the parallel or, or learning from the maybe more widely understood experience of, uh, Roma and Gypsy traveler communities, who face prejudice on another, another scale, another, another level. And there's, there's a much more social and a cultural dimension to that prejudice, as well. Um, but some of that opposition, often from more affluent pockets, often about things like, uh, mess, things like noise, whatever it might be.

And I guess the other side of it is also that opposition I, I imagine treats all of vehicular dwelling as one, as one homogenous group, which key learning from Louise and the team and the, the research that's underway is, that's very much not the case. So understanding these different motivations, maybe for want of a better words, the different circumstances that lead to it, is, is step one in, in terms of addressing the, the stereotype and the opposition and the challenges surrounding it.

Matt: And, and that kind of solution about relocation is something we've heard time and time again, actually. You know, “we'll just move, we move the problem”. Is that actually going – I'm, I'm not saying that Bristol City Council aren't necessarily then gonna provide, and I think from what we heard from Louise is to, to provide a, you know, set of supporting facilities. And that sounds very important, but that the kind of, one of the policy solutions often is "move it”, because that takes a lot of that kind of tension out of it. Doesn't kinda fix it. So. It remains to be seen.

Fraser: So long as wealthy, suburban communities don't have to look at it, the problem doesn't exist. Right? Is that the… We’re getting cynical now, Matt.

Matt: And therein lies… many of our other podcasts about onshore wind. Um, okay. Well look, that was a fascinating episode. We'll certainly, uh, be looking to have Louise and colleagues back to hear more about that. But to our listeners, thank you for listening to this really, really interesting episode of Local Zero. If you enjoy the podcast, please do spread the word to your friends and colleagues. Just hit the “share" button and send someone a link to the pod.

Fraser: And if you're listening on Apple Podcasts in particular, please leave a review. It really helps other people to find the podcast. If you're a listener on Spotify, you can comment directly on this episode. Do you have experience of living in a van or another non-traditional dwelling? Let us know.

Matt: Yeah, we'd be really interested to hear what, your reflections on the episode. And if there's something you think we should be exploring on Local Zero more generally, in terms of episode ideas, do get in touch by emailing us at localzeropod@gmail.com or sending us a message on LinkedIn. Just search for the “Local Zero podcast”.

Fraser: But for now, thanks very much and goodbye.

Matt: Goodbye.