403 access forbidden on storage/public folder

Hi, I have seen the posts from a few other people having the same issue, but although I have tried the suggested solutions I still have this problem getting a 403 access forbidden when trying to access the image url on the browser. I am not sure if it is because my Laravel app is running on Docker, maybe some further input would help.

What I have done far:

1. I have created a symlink of storage directory to public (I have tried using both absolute and relative path):

ls -lah public 
total 48
-rw-r--r--@ 1 lykos  staff   6.0K Feb  9 19:24 .DS_Store
-rw-r--r--@ 1 lykos  staff   670B Feb 14 21:00 .htaccess
drwxr-xr-x@ 3 lykos  staff    96B May 31  2022 css/
-rw-r--r--@ 1 lykos  staff     0B May 30  2022 favicon.ico
-rw-r--r--@ 1 lykos  staff   1.7K May 30  2022 index.php
drwxr-xr-x@ 3 lykos  staff    96B May 31  2022 js/
-rw-r--r--@ 1 lykos  staff    71B Jun  7  2022 mix-manifest.json
-rw-r--r--@ 1 lykos  staff    24B May 30  2022 robots.txt
lrwxr-xr-x@ 1 lykos  staff    21B Feb 13 16:21 storage@ -> ../storage/app/public

1. In the container that runs php the files & folders are owned by www-data. I can cd into the public/storage folder and if I run the ls command I can see the contents, so folders and files like 1/my-test-image.jpg etc

// from within the running php container
/var/www/html # ls -lah public/
total 24K    
drwxr-xr-x   11 www-data www-data     352 Feb 14 13:39 .
drwxr-xr-x   37 root     root        1.2K Feb 14 13:39 ..
-rw-r--r--    1 www-data www-data    6.0K Feb  9 19:24 .DS_Store
-rw-r--r--    1 www-data www-data     668 Feb 14 17:30 .htaccess
drwxr-xr-x    3 www-data www-data      96 May 31  2022 css
-rw-r--r--    1 www-data www-data       0 May 30  2022 favicon.ico
-rw-r--r--    1 www-data www-data    1.7K May 30  2022 index.php
drwxr-xr-x    3 www-data www-data      96 May 31  2022 js
-rw-r--r--    1 www-data www-data      71 Jun  7  2022 mix-manifest.json
-rw-r--r--    1 www-data www-data      24 May 30  2022 robots.txt
lrwxr-xr-x    1 www-data www-data      21 Feb 13 16:21 storage -> ../storage/app/public
/var/www/html #

1. I haven't done any changes in the config file, it is with the default settings so far, but I'm posting it anyway for ref

<?php

return [

    'default' => env('FILESYSTEM_DISK', 'local'),

    'disks' => [

        'local' => [
            'driver' => 'local',
            'root' => storage_path('app'),
            'throw' => false,
        ],

        'public' => [
            'driver' => 'local',
            'root' => storage_path('app/public'),
            'url' => env('APP_URL').'/storage',
            'visibility' => 'public',
            'throw' => false,
        ],

        's3' => [
            'driver' => 's3',
            'key' => env('AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID'),
            'secret' => env('AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY'),
            'region' => env('AWS_DEFAULT_REGION'),
            'bucket' => env('AWS_BUCKET'),
            'url' => env('AWS_URL'),
            'endpoint' => env('AWS_ENDPOINT'),
            'use_path_style_endpoint' => env('AWS_USE_PATH_STYLE_ENDPOINT', false),
            'throw' => false,
        ],

    ],

    'links' => [
        public_path('storage') => storage_path('app/public'),
    ],

];

1. This is my code

  // Livewire method
    public function mount()
    {
        $this->mainImageUrl = $this->post->getFirstMediaUrl();
    }

// Livewire view component
<div class="space-y-4">
    <img src="{{ $mainImageUrl }}" alt="" />
</div>

The mainImageUrl is http://localhost:8888/storage/1/my-test-image.jpg, so either when I try to access this url from a new tab in the browser or in the network tab in Developer Tools, I get the 403 status.

Any ideas what am I doing wrong? As I mentioned and in the begining this app is running on Docker (not Sail)