More Echo Journalism

The Echo has run a story about how Southampton is the worst area in the south east for fly tipping, topping a list of 67 councils.

http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/9859261.City_worst_for_fly_tipping/

Shocking, eh? Well it would be if you didn't have a look at the source data from DEFRA, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs...

http://www.defra.gov.uk/statistics/environment/waste/flytipping-in-england-annual-statistics/

Ignoring the obvious bias always associated with absolute figures - any statistician will tell you that the main figure should really be incidents per square mile or per 1000 people, rather than just total incidents - I can't help but notice that the data is in fact data for 2010-2011 and was released back in December. Obviously this is bad journalism on the Echo's part for reporting these figures as if they were current rather than eight months out of date. But there is another major factor that has been overlooked here - in the summer of 2011 Southampton's batshit-insane council decided to screw over half the public sector, leading to months of strikes throughout the city. Specifically, where I live we had our bins emptied twice over a period of about four months because the refuse collectors were on strike. It's not really surprising that there was an increase in fly-tipping in the Southampton area during this period.

I've said it before and I've said it again - don't believe anything you read in the paper (particularly the Echo) until you've seen the raw data.