A MAN who was evicted by the council after living a mobile bank in a field he owns while renovating a house has suffered further bad luck by breaking his leg.

And Andrew Downing, who says Queen Street, Lydney, house is uninhabitable with no hot water or WC, says a combination of the eviction and refusal by the council to give him home improvement grants has virtually put him on the street.

He claims that when he first inquired about grants he was told on the telephone that the department was "running round in circles" trying to give money away.

Yet his own application to the Forest of Dean District Council was refused under a rule which states he must live in a property for three years before claiming a grant.

"Now I'm on the sick with my leg in a frame and I can't work," he said. "It's as much as I can do to get around. But I still can't get any help."

He says he virtually gutted his house and lived in the mobile building in a field he owns at Woolaston to try to keep down expenses while the work was in progress.

"But I think somebody told on me. The council came and I was asked to leave. I wasn't doing any harm and the mobile isn't overlooked – as a matter of fact you wouldn't know it was there.

"However I was told I could only live in a caravan for a total of 28 days and I had to go."

Forest of Dean District Council's head of environmental services Paul Symonds said he was sympathetic with Mr Downing's case, all the more so because he had now hurt himself, but was powerless to help him though the grant system.

He said the nationally-applied ruling was designed to prevent people claiming grants for speculative building.

"Of course I am not saying that is the situation in Mr Downing's case. We have put him in touch with some self-help organisations but have heard nothing from him since."