16/03/2017 London News

I'm Asad Ahmad. for the news where you are.

A man has died in an explosion at a construction site in north London.

It happened in Highgate this afternoon - at a former petrol

station which was having its underground tanks removed.

Dan Freedman is there to tell us more.

You can see the police are still on the scene this evening, we expect

the Health and Safety Executive to begin their investigation here first

thing tomorrow morning. This is a very expensive part of north London,

locals say they love living here because of its proximity to Hamstead

Heath and the tranquillity it affords them. Not today.

At just after two o'clock this afternoon in this quiet part of

north London, residents felt an earthshaking boom.

I was in the garden and I just heard a massive

explosion and I could feel it almost in my fingers.

Yeah, I didn't see anything but I ran out here to the

balcony where I could have a look and I couldn't see anything

particularly that happened, but I must

say my first thought was that

Emergency services, including air ambulance,

rushed to the scene and took a man in his 50s to hospital with

After what has been described as an industrial incident.

The site itself was a former petrol station being

Local Green party councillor Sian Berry told the BBC its previous use

could give some clue as to the cause of the explosion.

We know that this is a big shock to everyone in

The site itself is being redeveloped, and we've known about

It's an old site where there are fuel tanks

There is no conclusion coming out yet from the

fire brigade or Health and Safety Executive.

It seems like the work that was going on was the removal of

the fuel tanks but it could have been some other operation that

There have been no arrests but police say their investigation

is ongoing and that the Health and Safety Executive has been informed.

Police have confirmed the man in his 50s as sadly died in hospital on the

BBC has the minutes of a meeting held ago between consent residents

and the development company where safety concerns were raised about

the site and the residents were told by the development company there was

no indication of any hazardous material on the site behind us and

that they had a safety plan in place to deal with those underground

tanks. Police are warning people to look

out for tiny cameras which are being used by fraudsters

to capture pin numbers. The cameras are no bigger

than a pinhead and are often positioned either above the screen

or facing the pinpad. They've been spotted at four cash

machines in central London - It's nearly 7 months to the day

since the first night tube started. Great news for many

travelling late at weekends - but it's also effected the health

and well-being of some people living near the tracks,

who don't get a break Emma North has been

listening to the problem. A service every 15 minutes at

weekends and a promise to transform Some say the night tube

has ruined theirs. In Ian Kitson's house

above the Jubilee line we are using an app

to get a rough idea of how

loud the tube is under We've moved out because

I'm not prepared... There you go, that

spiked at 51 decibel. Above the Victoria line,

Luce can't afford to move out. I feel exhausted, I faint, I've

developed twitches, I can't hear It's very difficult

to function in normal The world health organisation says

at night the sound around us shouldn't measure more

than 35 decibels. Londoners who came to City Hall

today told of levels Now we've got the world

health organisation. We treat each complaint

individually and we will look for an engineering solution

to address that complaint. The underground rumblings

annoy us because they are of such a low frequency they can

travel through our bones. It's one of these sorts

of noises that is quite difficult to mask out by

playing the radio or indeed defend The issue is that it

isn't constant, either, so we don't really have

the ability, or an individual living

in this area wouldn't have the ability to

adapt to it readily. As we get used to listening

out for the noise, it makes us more sensitive

to sound in general. What has frustrated some Londoners

is that their complaints I think TfL must start to respond

to people quickly and effectively. They need to identify

what the problems And put in place arrangements to fix

those problems, and tell people what they are going to do,

and stick to their promises. TfL says it's committed

to being a neighbour. Our team of engineers dedicated

to decreasing tube noise carried out a huge programme of

preparatory work ahead of the launch of the night tube, replacing

and grinding over 500 kilometres of track and introducing new resilient

track fastenings and shock absorbent fixings, which help reduce sound

when trains run over them. Grinding fastenings and fixings may

well one day do the job but for now there are warnings that the problem

of pollution may not just refer to the air we breathe but to the sounds

that surround us, too. Funding for a multimillion-pound

refurbishment of Buckingham Palace costing almost ?370 million

and set to take ten years - is needed to avoid the risk

of "catastrophic building failure". Now, MP's are used to asking

questions in the House of Commons. But not in the way Brent MP,

Dawn Butler did it today. She made history by

asking her question using British Sign Language,

urging the government to give the - Will the Minister agree... Sorry...

The 18th of March marks the 14th anniversary since the UK Government

recognised British sign language. Will the Minister agree, time to

bring and give British sign language legal status, like other recognised

languages? Just when you think London can't

surprise you any more, something pops up which leaves

you confused and bewildered. A production - where actors

improvise their performance - Because it's made up of live

sheep, pigs and goats - some of which have travelled

hundreds of miles for These goats have come all the way

from Wales for this... Unscripted, unplanned,

the performers improvise,

depending on how they think We're really interested in seeing

whether we can show people that there are different ways

of looking at them and having different relationships with them

and a different understanding

of what they are rather than merely as products,

maybe, in our homes, usually to eat, not for me, but lots of people

just eat and to buy and to herd and to put into cages of

that kind of thing. Animals aren't expected to perform,

organisers stress this is All funded by the Wellcome

Collection, this is a We very quickly found

ourselves in an unknown territory where everything we

thought we knew about being artists, being thinkers, everything

we thought we knew about human-animal relationships

was called into question by the presence of these

other animals in a really profound and moving and strange

and fascinating way. Well, the organisers

say they picked this particular warehouse because it had

the right light and the right temperature and it is close

to a farm in there as they could People are asked to watch and then

give their reactions. I'm not sure what I

gained except, like, the idea of turning the dynamic

relationship of human and animal I felt very nervous,

I felt their nervousness which was Literally in their responses

to art makes them more human, even though

they are animals, it There is no specific aim here,

organisers want to leave If they want to leave people with

questions they certainly succeeded in the studio tonight, haven't they,

John. Extraordinary. Unbelievable, as has the weather been.

Out east where I live it was nice, West it wasn't so lovely. For many

it was beautiful again. This shot over Old Street this evening. For

most of us, a fine evening out there. Over the weekend dry weather

around, relatively mild, quite blustery wind. Hopefully most of the

rain will occur overnight, a splash of rain through the early hours. No

great amount. Behind that the sky is clear and around dawn it'll be quite

chilly, temperatures well down so you'll need a couple of layers as

you step out first thing. Tomorrow morning rather nice, some sunshine,

quite cool. It'll warm up in the sunshine. Late in the day it will

tend to cloud over from the West but I think the rain will hold off until

evening. Temperatures doing OK, not as high as it has been, but in

double figures. Through the weekend there will be rain around, most

occurring overnight. there will be rain around, most

occurring overnight. Good evening, quite a range of

whether an offer earlier today in the north and north-west of the UK

quite a lot of showers around, lively ones, little bit of sunshine

in between. The best of the sunshine to be found at the other end of the

country towards the south-east in Kent, lovely picture