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

"I stepped outside anticipating a minor dip under a wheel or something similar. But when I went out to check it out, I realized, oh, that really is a proper hole," he explained.

His automobile had descended into a 10-foot wide gap, likely created by a mineshaft collapse, and McKenzie has spent 25 days stuck in a bureaucratic "nightmare" trying to figure out how to retrieve his car.

The Main Issue: Unregistered Property

The complication is that the land isn't registered. The local council has said it can't remove the fences cordoning off the hole until property rights had been established. "It's quite a difficult situation," said McKenzie, 36, a freelance designer. "There's bureaucracy at every turn."

McKenzie has lived in the area in Redruth for about a decade and actually has a parking space beside his house, but it is too narrow to be practical so he began parking outside a nearby bakery. He had verified with both the shop and the local authority that he would avoid receiving a parking fine.

"I'd finally felt like I was making progress, I had a dependable small vehicle 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 one day. She's always wanted to go."

The Incident and Aftermath

Then arrived that knock on the door on Saturday 1 November. "My neighbour was very alarmed. The police turned up and closed the area off. We all had to remain in the homes because we couldn't leave without going past the hole. The highways people arrived, erected the barrier up, and then they returned and placed a second fence up surrounding it as well."

It is thought the hole may be an unfortunate remnant of a historic local mine, a disused mining site.

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

A Potential Resolution

An end may be approaching. The authorities has said it will work with McKenzie to – briefly – remove the barriers to allow the car to be recovered. He commented: "They have agreed to work with my insurer's recovery team and try to schedule a day and an suitable way of extracting it that ensures no 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 went out in a memorable way – not everyone can claim their car was swallowed by the Earth itself," McKenzie remarked.

Authority Statement

A representative from the authorities expressed it sympathised with McKenzie. But it said: "This collapse did not happen on council land. We have made the area safe and advised the vehicle owner that we will organize to lift the fence to allow him to retrieve the vehicle.

"As the land is unregistered, our barriers will remain in place until property ownership has been established, and we will persist to observe the vicinity to guarantee public safety."