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

"I stepped outside anticipating a minor dip under a tire or something like that. But when I walked out to take a look, I realized, oh, that really is a significant cavity," he stated.

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

The Main Problem: Unclaimed Land

The complication is that the land has no registered owner. The authorities has said it won't take down the barriers blocking off the sinkhole until land ownership had been established. "It's quite a difficult situation," said McKenzie, 36, a self-employed 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 next to his house, but it is too narrow to be useful so he started leaving his car outside a nearby bakery. He had checked with both the bakery and the local authority that he wouldn't get a parking fine.

"I had finally reached a point like I was making progress, I had a reliable little car that was fuel-efficient and easy to keep on the road. It signified I could at last focus on trying to put money aside to take my daughter on her dream trip to Japan one day. She's always wanted to go."

The Incident and Aftermath

Then came that knock on the door on a Saturday in 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 passing by the hole. The highways people came out, put the barrier up, and then they returned and put a additional barrier up surrounding it as well."

It is thought the hole may be an unfortunate legacy 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 Resolution

An conclusion may be approaching. The authorities has said it will cooperate with McKenzie to – temporarily – remove the fences to allow the car to be removed. He commented: "They are willing to assist my insurer's retrieval crew and try to schedule a day and an acceptable way of extracting it that ensures no anybody at danger."

The vehicle has been significantly harmed and is probably to be written off. "On the bright side I can say my Mini met its end in style – not everyone can say their car was eaten by the ground beneath them," McKenzie noted.

Authority Statement

A spokesperson from the authorities expressed it sympathised with McKenzie. But it said: "This collapse did not happen on public property. We have made the area safe and advised the vehicle owner that we will arrange to lift the fence to enable him to recover the car.

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