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The first sign the local man received of his predicament was when a neighbor loudly knocked on his door and informed him his cherished Mini had plunged into a hole.

"I went out expecting a minor dip under a tire or something like that. But when I went out to check it out, I realized, oh, that really is a significant cavity," he explained.

His vehicle had descended into a 3-metre wide opening, possibly created by a collapsed mine shaft, and McKenzie has spent 25 days caught in a bureaucratic "difficult situation" trying to figure out how to extricate his Mini.

The Main Problem: Unclaimed Land

The complication is that the land has no registered owner. The authorities has said it can't remove the barriers cordoning off the sinkhole until property rights had been confirmed. "It's a bit of a nightmare," said McKenzie, 36, a self-employed designer. "It's red tape everywhere."

McKenzie has resided in the area in Redruth for about 10 years and in fact has a parking space beside his house, but it is too narrow to be practical so he began parking outside a local bakery. He had checked with both the shop and the council that he wouldn't get a ticket.

"I'd finally felt like I was making progress, I had a reliable small vehicle that was fuel-efficient and easy to keep on the road. It signified I could at last focus on trying to save up to take my daughter on her aspirational journey to Japan one day. She's constantly dreamed to go."

The Event and Consequences

Then arrived that knock on the door on a Saturday in November. "The person next door was quite panicked. The officers arrived and closed the zone off. We all had to stay in the homes because we couldn't leave without going past the hole. The road crew came out, put the fence up, and then they returned and put a additional barrier up around it as well."

It is believed the opening may be an unlucky remnant of a historic local mine, a abandoned mining site.

McKenzie believed he would be without his vehicle for a few days. But that short time have now turned into weeks.

A Potential Solution

An conclusion may be in sight. The authorities has stated it will cooperate with McKenzie to – briefly – lift the barriers to permit the car to be recovered. He said: "They have agreed to assist my insurance company's recovery team and try to arrange a date and an suitable way of extracting it that ensures no anybody at risk."

The car has been significantly harmed and is likely to be written off. "At least I can say my Mini went out in a memorable way – not everyone can say their vehicle was swallowed by the ground beneath them," McKenzie noted.

Authority Statement

A representative from the local council said it felt sorry with McKenzie. But it added: "This collapse did not occur on public property. We have secured the location and advised the car owner that we will organize to lift the fence to allow him to retrieve the vehicle.

"Since no one owns the land, our safety measures will remain in place until property ownership has been established, and we will continue to monitor the vicinity to guarantee everyone's security."