  We present new evidence for a large deficiency in the local galaxy
distribution situated in the 4000 sq.deg. APM survey area. We use models guided
by the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey (2dFGRS) n(z) as a probe of the underlying
LSS. We first check the usefulness of this technique by comparing the 2dFGRS
n(z) model prediction with the K-band and B-band number counts extracted from
the 2MASS and 2dFGRS parent catalogues over the 2dFGRS Northern and Southern
declination strips, before turning to a comparison with the APM counts. We find
that the APM counts in both the B and K-bands indicate a deficiency in the
local galaxy distribution of approx. 30% to z=0.1 over the entire APM survey
area. We examine the implied significance of such a large local hole,
considering several possible forms for the real-space correlation function. We
find that such a deficiency in the APM survey area indicates an excess of power
at large scales over what is expected from the correlation function observed in
the 2dFGRS correlation function or predicted from $\Lambda$CDM Hubble Volume
mock catalogues. In order to check further the clustering at large scales in
the 2MASS data, we have calculated the angular power spectrum for 2MASS
galaxies. Although in the linear regime (l<30), LCDM models can give a good fit
to the 2MASS angular power spectrum, over a wider range (l<100) the power
spectrum from Hubble Volume mock catalogues suggests that scale-dependent bias
may be needed for LCDM to fit. However, the modest increase in large-scale
power observed in the 2MASS angular power spectrum is still not enough to
explain the local hole.
