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The first sign the local man had of his situation was when a neighbor loudly knocked on his front door and informed him his beloved Mini had fallen into a opening.

"I stepped outside anticipating a minor dip under a tire or something similar. But when I went out to take a look, I understood, oh, that really is a significant cavity," he explained.

His vehicle had dropped into a 10-foot wide opening, possibly created by a collapsed mine shaft, and McKenzie has endured 25 days stuck in a administrative "difficult situation" trying to determine how to extricate his car.

The Core Issue: Unregistered Land

The complication is that the land has no registered owner. The local council has stated it can't remove the fences blocking off the hole until property rights had been confirmed. "It's a bit of a nightmare," said McKenzie, 36, a freelance creative. "It's red tape everywhere."

McKenzie has resided in the neighborhood in Redruth for about 10 years and actually has a parking space beside his house, but it is not wide enough to be useful so he started leaving his car outside a nearby bakery. He had checked with both the bakery and the council that he wouldn't get a parking fine.

"I had finally reached a point like I was getting somewhere, I had a dependable small vehicle that was economical and simple to keep on the road. It signified I could at last focus on trying to save up to take my child on her aspirational journey to Japan one day. She's constantly dreamed to go."

The Event and Aftermath

Then arrived that knock on the door on Saturday 1 November. "The person next door was quite panicked. The police 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 came out and placed a second fence up surrounding it as well."

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

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

A Potential Solution

An end may be in sight. The council has said it will work with McKenzie to – briefly – lift the fences to permit the car to be removed. He said: "They are willing 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 badly damaged and is probably to be written off. "At least I can say my Mini went out in style – not everyone can claim their car was swallowed by the ground beneath them," McKenzie remarked.

Authority Statement

A spokesperson from the local council said it sympathised with McKenzie. But it said: "The ground giving way did not occur on public property. We have secured the location and informed the vehicle owner that we will arrange to lift the fence to allow him to retrieve the vehicle.

"As the land is unregistered, our safety measures will stay up until land ownership has been established, and we will continue to monitor the vicinity to guarantee public safety."