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The first indication the local man had of his situation was when a person living nearby loudly knocked on his door and told him his cherished Mini had fallen into a hole.

"I went out anticipating a small pothole under a wheel or something similar. But when I went out to check it out, I realized, oh, that really is a significant cavity," he stated.

His automobile had dropped into a 3-metre wide opening, likely created by a collapsed mine shaft, and McKenzie has endured 25 days stuck in a bureaucratic "difficult situation" trying to determine how to retrieve his car.

The Core Issue: Unregistered Property

The hitch is that the land has no registered owner. The local council has stated it won't take down the barriers blocking off the sinkhole until property rights had been confirmed. "It's a bit of a nightmare," said McKenzie, 36, a freelance designer. "It's red tape everywhere."

McKenzie has lived in the neighborhood in Redruth for about a decade and in fact has a parking space beside 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 council that he would avoid receiving a parking fine.

"I'd finally felt like I was getting somewhere, I had a dependable little car that was fuel-efficient and simple to keep on the road. It meant I could at last focus on trying to put money aside to take my daughter on her aspirational journey to Japan one day. She's always wanted to go."

The Incident and Consequences

Then arrived that knock on the door on Saturday 1 November. "My neighbour was very alarmed. The officers turned up and secured the area off. We all had to stay in the homes 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 placed a second fence up around it as well."

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

McKenzie thought he would be separated from his car for a short period. But days have now become weeks.

A Possible Solution

An conclusion may be approaching. The authorities has said it will work with McKenzie to – briefly – lift the fences to permit the Mini to be recovered. He commented: "They have agreed to assist my insurer's recovery team and try to schedule a date and an acceptable way of extracting it that doesn't put 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 style – not everyone can say their vehicle was eaten by the ground beneath them," McKenzie noted.

Council Response

A spokesperson from the authorities said it felt sorry with McKenzie. But it said: "The ground giving way did not happen on council land. We have made the area safe and informed the car owner that we will organize to temporarily remove the fence to allow him to retrieve the car.

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