Workers campaign for better safety

Twenty construction workers held a protest at DS8 construction site in Canary Wharf on Friday (3 August) following the death of a worker on the east side of Canada Square two days earlier.

Electrical engineer Cormack Nordon, an employee of Arnold Control Systems, was helping to move a "very large" piece of electrical equipment, which was being lifted by a crane, when it fell off and crushed him.

An inquest into his death was opened at Poplar Coroners Court on Monday, but adjourned to a later date.

Tony O'Brien, secretary of the Construction Safety Campaign, which organised the demonstration, said: "It is paradoxical that within two days of the Health & Safety Executive figures [showing construction fatalities at a 10-year high] being released there is another fatality on one of the largest ongoing construction sites in the country. This is the fourth death on this particular site and the seventh on a Canary Wharf site overall.

"The work being carried out is worth billions of pounds, yet what value is put on the life of a worker? The workforce is desperate - fearing that any of them could be next."

A Canary Wharf Group statement read: "Our thoughts are with the family and friends of the deceased to whom we extend our deepest sympathy."