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

"I stepped outside expecting a minor dip under a wheel or something similar. But when I went out to check it out, I realized, oh, that truly is a proper hole," he explained.

His vehicle had descended into a 10-foot wide gap, likely created by a collapsed mine shaft, and McKenzie has endured 25 days caught in a administrative "nightmare" trying to figure out how to extricate his car.

The Core Problem: Unregistered Land

The hitch is that the property isn't registered. The authorities has said it can't remove the barriers cordoning off the sinkhole until property rights had been established. "It's a bit of a nightmare," said McKenzie, 36, a freelance designer. "There's bureaucracy at every turn."

McKenzie has lived in the neighborhood in Redruth for about a decade and in fact has a parking space beside his house, but it is not wide enough to be useful so he began parking outside a local 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 reliable 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 came that loud rapping on a Saturday in November. "My neighbour was very alarmed. The police arrived and closed the area off. We all had to stay in the houses because we can't get out without passing by the hole. The highways people arrived, put the fence up, and then they came out and put a additional barrier up surrounding it as well."

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

McKenzie thought he would be separated from his car for a short period. But days have now turned into weeks.

A Possible Resolution

An conclusion may be in sight. The authorities has stated it will cooperate with McKenzie to – temporarily – remove the fences to permit the car to be recovered. He commented: "They are willing to work with my insurance company's retrieval crew and try to schedule a date and an suitable way of extracting it that ensures no anybody at danger."

The car has been badly damaged and is likely to be declared a total loss. "On the bright side I can say my Mini met its end in a memorable way – not everyone can claim their vehicle was swallowed by the ground beneath them," McKenzie noted.

Authority Response

A representative from the authorities expressed it sympathised with McKenzie. But it said: "The ground giving way did not happen on public property. We have secured the location and informed the car owner that we will arrange to lift the barrier to enable him to retrieve the vehicle.

"Since no one owns the land, our barriers will stay up until property ownership has been established, and we will continue to observe the vicinity to guarantee public safety."