Laravel 5.1 install on Ubuntu white screen no errors in laravel.log and .env file exists

I have been struggling with this for days now, to the point where I have visited every link on stack laravel.io and laracasts and still no luck

Permissions on storage and bootstrap/cache changed to 777

When I browse to the welcome page on my app the result in inspector is 'get 200' for the pretty url

Artisan is functioning, key has been generated added to .env and app.php

No errors in apache log

I have upgraded php in Ubuntu 14.04 to version 5.6.14 (however, I am not able to browse to the info.php file I created in /var/www/html by putting my ip in the browser ie 192.168.2.12/info.php)

Would be really grateful if someone could shed some light on this - especially as to why I can't seem to browse to info.php

via Chebli Mohamed