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

"I went out expecting a minor dip under a wheel or something like that. But when I went out to check it out, I realized, oh, that really is a proper hole," he stated.

His vehicle had dropped into a 3-metre wide opening, likely caused by a collapsed mine shaft, and McKenzie has endured 25 days stuck in a bureaucratic "nightmare" trying to figure out how to extricate his car.

The Main Issue: Unregistered Property

The hitch is that the land isn't registered. The local council has stated it can't remove the barriers cordoning off the hole until land ownership had been established. "It's a bit of a nightmare," said McKenzie, 36, a freelance creative. "It's red tape everywhere."

McKenzie has resided in the area in Redruth for about a decade and actually has a designated spot beside his house, but it is too narrow to be practical so he started leaving his car outside a local bakery. He had verified with both the shop and the local authority that he wouldn't get a ticket.

"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 at last focus on trying to put money aside to take my daughter on her aspirational journey to Japan someday. She's constantly dreamed to go."

The Event and Aftermath

Then came that knock on the door on a Saturday in November. "The person next door was quite panicked. The officers turned up and secured the area off. We all had to stay in the houses because we can't get out without going past the collapse. The road crew arrived, erected the barrier 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 legacy of a historic local mine, a disused mining site.

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

A Possible Resolution

An conclusion may be in sight. The council has stated it will work with McKenzie to – temporarily – remove the barriers to allow the car to be removed. He commented: "They are willing to work with my insurer's retrieval crew and try to arrange a date and an acceptable way of extracting it that doesn't put anybody at risk."

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

Council Statement

A spokesperson from the local council expressed it felt sorry with McKenzie. But it said: "This collapse did not happen on council land. We have secured the location and advised the car owner that we will arrange to temporarily remove the fence to enable him to recover the car.

"As the land is unregistered, our safety measures will remain in place until property ownership has been determined, and we will continue to monitor the surrounding area to guarantee everyone's security."