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The first indication Malcolm McKenzie had of his predicament was when a person living nearby urgently banged on his front door and informed him his cherished Mini had fallen into a opening.

"I went out anticipating a small pothole under a wheel or something like that. But when I walked out to take a look, I understood, oh, that really is a proper hole," he stated.

His automobile had descended into a 3-metre wide gap, possibly caused by a collapsed mine shaft, and McKenzie has endured 25 days caught in a bureaucratic "nightmare" trying to figure out how to extricate his car.

The Main Problem: Unregistered Property

The complication is that the property has no registered owner. The authorities has said it won't take down the barriers cordoning off the sinkhole until land ownership had been established. "It's a bit of a nightmare," said McKenzie, 36, a self-employed creative. "It's red tape everywhere."

McKenzie has resided in the neighborhood in Redruth for about 10 years and in fact has a designated spot beside his house, but it is too narrow to be practical so he began parking outside a local bakery. He had verified with both the bakery and the local authority that he would avoid receiving a ticket.

"I'd finally felt 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 save up to take my child on her dream trip to Japan one day. She's always wanted 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 officers arrived and closed the zone off. We all had to stay in the houses because we can't get out without passing by the hole. The highways people arrived, erected the fence up, and then they came out and put a additional barrier up around it as well."

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

McKenzie thought he would be separated from his vehicle for a few days. But that short time have now turned into weeks.

A Possible Resolution

An conclusion may be in sight. The authorities has stated it will cooperate with McKenzie to – briefly – remove the fences to allow the Mini to be removed. He commented: "They are willing to assist my insurance company's retrieval crew and try to schedule a day and an suitable way of extracting it that doesn't put anybody at danger."

The car has been badly damaged and is probably to be written off. "On the bright side I can say my Mini met its end in style – not everyone can claim their car was swallowed by the Earth itself," McKenzie noted.

Authority Response

A representative from the local council said it sympathised with McKenzie. But it added: "This collapse did not happen on public property. We have made the area safe and informed the car owner that we will arrange to lift the barrier to enable him to recover the car.

"As the land is unregistered, our barriers will stay up until land ownership has been determined, and we will continue to monitor the surrounding area to guarantee everyone's security."