Malcolm McKenzie’s car was left suspended in mid-air after the ground gave way beneath a car park
Malcolm’s Mini fell into mineshaft behind Berrymans Bakery in Redruth(Image: Malcolm McKenzie)
A Cornish man’s car is precariously perched over a suspected mineshaft in a Redruth bakery car park — and it could still disappear beneath the surface.
Malcolm McKenzie’s Mini was dramatically caught in the collapse behind Berrymans Bakery, with the front end of the vehicle left hanging several feet above the newly formed sinkhole.
Malcolm said the car had shifted slightly overnight but now appeared to have settled — for the time being. Speaking on Sunday, November 2, he said: “The car is not in the hole yet but it’s slightly further down than it was yesterday. It seems to have stabilised at where it is though because it has not moved much since the early hours of the morning.”
Emergency services were called to the scene on Saturday, November 1 after Malcolm was alerted by a neighbour at around 2.30pm. He initially thought it might be a minor issue, only to discover the front end of his vehicle suspended “about four foot in the air”.
“I went out to have a look thinking it was going to be a pothole or something that’s opened up under the wheel,” he said. “I walked out the front of the house, walked around the corner and saw the front end of my car about four foot in the air.”
As he got closer, Malcolm realised the danger had not passed.
Malcolm McKenzie’s Mini fell into mineshaft that opened behind Berrymans Bakery in Redruth(Image: Malcolm McKenzie)
“I got within about six feet of the hole before I realised you could still hear stuff falling into it,” he said. “As I got closer, you could see a lot of the ground was still there, just deeper than it should be.”
Police cordoned off the car park and an adjacent road due to fears that more of the surface could give way. Malcolm said parts of the area had sunk even further, raising concerns about how — or if — the car could be safely recovered.
“The police have no idea what they can do with the car at the moment because it depends on what the rest of the car park is like,” he explained. “If they bring a recovery truck in and it falls into [the mineshaft], that’s going to put a risk to other people.”
He noted that Redruth’s mining past meant such collapses, while alarming, were not entirely unheard of. Malcolm recalled a similar incident nearby during his younger years.
Police have cordoned off the area(Image: Malcolm McKenzie)
And he believes a last-minute change of plans might have spared them a tragedy.
“We were meant to be going out to Falmouth and my partner turned around and said ‘should we go down to Trago [Mills]?’ and I said I did not really feel like it, so we did not go,” he said. “That was about 40 minutes before someone knocked on the door… it happened literally around the time we would have been getting into the car. I am just glad we did not get caught in it.”
By Saturday evening, council workers had fenced off the site. “The highways people came out and put up fences around the whole area just now so apparently people can come around the outside of the area now,” Malcolm said. “But they still do not know why it has happened and that is a council job for Monday.”