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

"I stepped outside anticipating a small pothole under a wheel or something like that. But when I walked out to take a look, I realized, oh, that really is a proper hole," he explained.

His vehicle had dropped into a 10-foot wide opening, possibly created by a mineshaft collapse, and McKenzie has spent 25 days stuck in a bureaucratic "difficult situation" trying to determine how to retrieve his car.

The Core Problem: Unregistered Property

The hitch is that the land has no registered owner. The authorities has stated it can't remove the barriers cordoning off the hole until land ownership had been confirmed. "It's quite a difficult situation," said McKenzie, 36, a self-employed creative. "It's red tape everywhere."

McKenzie has lived in the neighborhood in Redruth for about a decade and actually has a parking space next to his house, but it is not wide enough to be practical so he began parking outside a local bakery. He had checked with both the shop and the local authority that he wouldn't get a ticket.

"I had finally reached a point like I was getting somewhere, I had a dependable little car that was fuel-efficient and easy to keep on the road. It meant I could finally focus on trying to put money aside to take my daughter on her dream trip to Japan someday. She's constantly dreamed to go."

The Event and Consequences

Then arrived that knock on the door on a Saturday in November. "My neighbour was quite panicked. The police arrived and closed the area off. We all had to remain in the homes because we can't get out without passing by the collapse. The road crew arrived, erected the fence up, and then they returned and put a second fence up around it as well."

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

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

A Possible Resolution

An conclusion may be approaching. The authorities has stated it will work with McKenzie to – temporarily – lift the fences to permit the car to be recovered. He said: "They are willing 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 risk."

The car has been badly damaged and is probably to be declared a total loss. "On the bright side I can say my Mini met its end in a memorable way – not everyone can say their car was eaten by the ground beneath them," McKenzie remarked.

Authority Response

A representative from the authorities said it felt sorry with McKenzie. But it added: "This collapse did not happen on public property. We have made the area safe and advised the car owner that we will organize to lift the fence to allow him to recover the car.

"Since no one owns the land, our safety measures will remain in place until land ownership has been determined, and we will continue to observe the surrounding area to ensure public safety."