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The first sign the local man received of his predicament was when a person living nearby loudly knocked on his front door and informed him his cherished Mini had fallen into a opening.

"I stepped outside anticipating a minor dip under a wheel or something like that. But when I walked out to check it out, I realized, oh, that really is a significant cavity," he stated.

His vehicle had dropped into a 10-foot wide gap, possibly caused by a collapsed mine shaft, and McKenzie has endured 25 days stuck in a administrative "difficult situation" trying to figure out how to retrieve his car.

The Core Issue: Unregistered Land

The hitch is that the property has no registered owner. The local council has stated it can't remove the fences cordoning off the hole until property rights had been confirmed. "It's a bit of a nightmare," said McKenzie, 36, a self-employed creative. "It's red tape everywhere."

McKenzie has resided in the neighborhood in Redruth for about a decade and actually has a designated spot beside his house, but it is not wide enough to be useful so he started leaving his car outside a nearby bakery. He had checked with both the bakery and the local authority that he would avoid receiving a parking fine.

"I had finally reached a point like I was making progress, I had a dependable little car that was fuel-efficient and simple to keep on the road. It signified I could finally focus on trying to put money aside to take my child on her aspirational journey to Japan someday. She's always wanted to go."

The Incident and Consequences

Then came that knock on the door on a Saturday in November. "The person next door was quite panicked. The police arrived and closed the area off. We all had to remain in the houses because we can't get out without passing by the collapse. The highways people arrived, erected the fence up, and then they came out and put a additional barrier up around it as well."

It is believed the hole may be an unlucky remnant of a historic local mine, a disused copper and tin mine.

McKenzie thought he would be without his vehicle for a few days. But days have now turned into weeks.

A Possible Solution

An end may be approaching. The authorities has said it will cooperate with McKenzie to – temporarily – remove the fences to allow the Mini to be recovered. He commented: "They are willing to assist my insurer's recovery team and try to arrange a day and an suitable way of extracting it that ensures no anybody at danger."

The vehicle has been badly damaged and is probably to be written off. "On the bright side I can say my Mini went out in a memorable way – not everyone can claim their vehicle was swallowed by the Earth itself," McKenzie noted.

Authority Response

A representative from the local council said it sympathised with McKenzie. But it said: "The ground giving way did not happen on public property. We have made the area safe and informed the vehicle owner that we will arrange to lift the fence to enable him to retrieve the vehicle.

"As the land is unregistered, our barriers will stay up until land ownership has been determined, and we will continue to observe the surrounding area to guarantee everyone's security."