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The initial indication the local man received of his predicament was when a person living nearby urgently banged on his door and told him his beloved Mini had plunged into a hole.

"I stepped outside anticipating a minor dip under a wheel or something like that. But when I walked out to check it out, I understood, oh, that truly is a proper hole," he explained.

His automobile had descended into a 10-foot wide opening, possibly caused by a mineshaft collapse, and McKenzie has endured 25 days caught in a bureaucratic "difficult situation" trying to determine how to retrieve his Mini.

The Main Issue: Unclaimed Land

The complication is that the land isn't registered. The authorities has said it can't remove the barriers cordoning off the sinkhole until property rights had been established. "It's quite a difficult situation," said McKenzie, 36, a self-employed designer. "There's bureaucracy at every turn."

McKenzie has lived in the neighborhood in Redruth for about a decade and actually has a designated spot next to his house, but it is not wide enough to be useful so he started leaving his car outside a nearby bakery. He had verified with both the shop and the local authority that he wouldn't get a ticket.

"I'd finally felt like I was getting somewhere, I had a dependable small vehicle that was economical and simple to keep on the road. It signified I could at last focus on trying to save up to take my child on her dream trip to Japan one day. She's always wanted to go."

The Incident and Aftermath

Then came that knock on the door on a Saturday in November. "My neighbour was very alarmed. The police arrived and closed the zone off. We all had to stay in the homes because we can't get out without going past the hole. The highways people arrived, put the barrier up, and then they came out and put a additional barrier up around it as well."

It is thought the opening may be an unfortunate legacy of Pednandrea Mine, a disused mining site.

McKenzie believed he would be without his car for a few days. But that short time have now become weeks.

A Potential Solution

An end may be in sight. The council has stated it will work with McKenzie to – briefly – lift the barriers to permit the Mini to be removed. He commented: "They have agreed to work with my insurance company's retrieval crew and try to arrange a date and an acceptable way of extracting it that ensures no anybody at risk."

The car has been significantly harmed and is probably to be written off. "On the bright side I can say my Mini met its end in style – not everyone can claim their vehicle was eaten by the Earth itself," McKenzie remarked.

Authority Statement

A spokesperson from the authorities said it sympathised with McKenzie. But it added: "This collapse did not happen on public property. We have made the area safe and advised the car owner that we will arrange to temporarily remove the barrier to enable him to recover the car.

"Since no one owns the land, our barriers will stay up until land ownership has been established, and we will persist to observe the surrounding area to ensure public safety."