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The first sign Malcolm McKenzie had of his situation was when a person living nearby urgently banged on his front door and told him his beloved Mini had fallen into a opening.

"I went out anticipating a minor dip under a wheel or something like that. But when I walked out to take a look, I understood, oh, that really is a significant cavity," he explained.

His automobile had dropped into a 10-foot wide gap, likely created by a mineshaft collapse, and McKenzie has spent 25 days caught in a administrative "difficult situation" trying to determine how to extricate his Mini.

The Core Problem: Unregistered Land

The complication is that the property has no registered owner. The local council has stated it can't remove the fences cordoning off the hole until land ownership had been confirmed. "It's a bit of a nightmare," said McKenzie, 36, a self-employed designer. "There's bureaucracy at every turn."

McKenzie has lived in the neighborhood in Redruth for about a decade and actually has a designated spot next to his house, but it is too narrow to be useful so he began parking outside a local bakery. He had checked with both the bakery and the local authority that he wouldn't get a parking fine.

"I'd finally felt like I was getting somewhere, I had a dependable small vehicle that was fuel-efficient and easy to keep on the road. It signified I could finally focus on trying to put money aside to take my child on her dream trip to Japan someday. She's constantly dreamed to go."

The Event and Consequences

Then arrived that loud rapping on a Saturday in November. "My neighbour was very alarmed. The police turned up and closed the area off. We all had to stay in the houses because we can't get out without going past the hole. The road crew arrived, erected the barrier up, and then they returned and put a additional barrier up around it as well."

It is believed the hole may be an unlucky remnant of a historic local mine, a disused copper and tin mine.

McKenzie believed he would be without his vehicle for a few days. But days have now turned into weeks.

A Possible Resolution

An end may be approaching. The council has said it will cooperate with McKenzie to – briefly – lift the barriers to permit the car to be removed. He commented: "They have agreed to work with my insurance company's retrieval crew and try to arrange a day and an suitable way of getting it out that doesn't put anybody at danger."

The vehicle has been significantly harmed 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 car was eaten by the ground beneath them," McKenzie noted.

Council Statement

A representative from the local council said it sympathised with McKenzie. But it added: "The ground giving way did not happen on council land. We have made the area safe and informed the car owner that we will organize to lift the fence to allow him to recover the vehicle.

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