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The first sign the local man had of his predicament was when a person living nearby loudly knocked on his door and told him his beloved Mini had plunged into a hole.

"I went out anticipating a small pothole under a wheel or something similar. But when I went out to check it out, I understood, oh, that truly is a significant cavity," he explained.

His vehicle had descended into a 10-foot wide opening, likely created by a mineshaft collapse, and McKenzie has endured 25 days stuck in a bureaucratic "difficult situation" trying to determine how to retrieve his Mini.

The Core Problem: Unclaimed Property

The complication is that the property has no registered owner. The authorities has said it won't take down the fences cordoning off the sinkhole until property rights had been confirmed. "It's quite a difficult situation," said McKenzie, 36, a freelance designer. "There's bureaucracy at every turn."

McKenzie has resided in the neighborhood in Redruth for about a decade and in fact has a parking space beside his house, but it is too narrow to be practical so he started leaving his car outside a local bakery. He had verified with both the bakery and the council 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 put money aside to take my daughter on her aspirational journey 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 very alarmed. The officers turned up and secured the area off. We all had to stay in the houses because we can't get out without passing by the hole. The road crew came out, put 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 legacy of a historic local mine, a abandoned mining site.

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

A Possible Resolution

An end may be approaching. The council has said it will work with McKenzie to – briefly – lift the fences to permit the Mini to be removed. He commented: "They have agreed to work with my insurance company's recovery team and try to arrange a date and an acceptable way of extracting it that doesn't put anybody at risk."

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 a memorable way – not everyone can claim their car was swallowed by the ground beneath them," McKenzie remarked.

Council Response

A spokesperson from the authorities said it sympathised with McKenzie. But it added: "The ground giving way did not happen on council land. We have secured the location and advised the vehicle owner that we will arrange to temporarily remove the fence to enable him to retrieve the vehicle.

"As the land is unregistered, our barriers will remain in place until land ownership has been determined, and we will persist to monitor the surrounding area to ensure everyone's security."