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

"I stepped outside anticipating a minor dip under a tire or something like that. But when I walked out to check it out, I realized, oh, that truly is a proper hole," he explained.

His automobile had descended into a 10-foot 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 extricate his Mini.

The Main Problem: Unregistered Property

The hitch is that the land has no registered owner. The local council has stated it can't remove the barriers 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 neighborhood in Redruth for about 10 years and in fact has a designated spot next to his house, but it is not wide enough to be useful so he started leaving his car outside a local bakery. He had checked with both the shop and the local authority that he would avoid receiving a ticket.

"I'd finally felt like I was making progress, I had a reliable little car that was fuel-efficient and simple to keep on the road. It signified I could finally focus on trying to put money aside to take my daughter on her dream trip to Japan one day. She's constantly dreamed to go."

The Event and Aftermath

Then came that loud rapping on a Saturday in November. "My neighbour was quite panicked. The officers turned up and secured the area off. We all had to stay in the homes because we couldn't leave without going past the collapse. The road crew came out, erected the fence up, and then they returned and put a additional barrier up around it as well."

It is thought the opening may be an unlucky legacy of Pednandrea Mine, a abandoned mining site.

McKenzie believed he would be separated from his car for a few days. But days have now turned into weeks.

A Possible Resolution

An conclusion may be approaching. The council has stated it will work with McKenzie to – briefly – remove the fences to allow the car to be recovered. He commented: "They are willing to work with my insurer's retrieval crew and try to arrange a day and an suitable way of extracting it that doesn't put anybody at danger."

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

Authority Statement

A spokesperson from the authorities expressed it felt sorry with McKenzie. But it added: "This collapse did not happen on council land. We have made the area safe and informed the vehicle owner that we will arrange to lift the fence to enable him to recover the vehicle.

"As the land is unregistered, our barriers will remain in place until property ownership has been established, and we will continue to monitor the vicinity to ensure everyone's security."