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The initial indication Malcolm McKenzie received of his situation was when a neighbor loudly knocked on his door and told him his beloved Mini had fallen into a opening.

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

His vehicle had descended into a 3-metre wide opening, possibly caused by a mineshaft collapse, and McKenzie has endured 25 days caught in a bureaucratic "nightmare" trying to figure out how to retrieve his Mini.

The Main Problem: Unclaimed Land

The hitch is that the land has no registered owner. The authorities has said it can't remove the barriers cordoning off the hole until property rights had been confirmed. "It's quite a difficult situation," said McKenzie, 36, a self-employed designer. "There's bureaucracy at every turn."

McKenzie has lived in the area in Redruth for about a decade and actually has a parking space next to his house, but it is too narrow to be practical so he began parking outside a nearby bakery. He had checked with both the shop and the local authority that he would avoid receiving a ticket.

"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 meant I could finally focus on trying to put money aside to take my child on her aspirational journey to Japan one day. She's always wanted to go."

The Event and Aftermath

Then came that loud rapping on a Saturday in November. "The person next door was quite panicked. The police turned up and secured the area off. We all had to remain in the houses because we couldn't leave without going past the hole. The road crew came out, erected the fence up, and then they returned and placed a second fence up surrounding it as well."

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

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

A Potential Resolution

An conclusion may be approaching. The council has said it will cooperate with McKenzie to – briefly – lift the barriers to permit the Mini to be removed. He commented: "They are willing to work with my insurer's retrieval crew and try to schedule a day and an suitable way of getting it out 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 a memorable way – not everyone can claim their car was swallowed by the Earth itself," McKenzie noted.

Authority Statement

A representative from the local council said it sympathised with McKenzie. But it said: "This collapse did not happen on public property. We have secured the location and advised the vehicle owner that we will arrange to lift the fence to allow him to retrieve the car.

"Since no one owns the land, our safety measures will remain in place until property ownership has been established, and we will continue to monitor the surrounding area to ensure everyone's security."