No rain on London's New Year parade

Spectators basked in sunshine as London welcomed 2013 with a New Year's Day parade that celebrated the city's Olympics glory.

Organisers said more than 500,000 people had enjoyed the fair weather as floats, cheerleaders and brass bands marched through the centre of the capital.

The stars of the show were the Olympic volunteers who welcomed the world to London in the summer and helped make the Games such a success.

Crowds were entertained by the Pandemonium Drummers, whose performance was one of the Olympics opening ceremony's highlights, and the Games Maker Choir.

Event organiser Bob Bone told Sky News: "We thought it was a fitting thing to ask them (the Games Makers) to come into our parade so that we could say thank you to them.

"But also we are looking forward as well as backward, because I think the Games Makers have shown that there's a great volunteering spirit in this country.

"There are lots of things that people can carry on doing to carry that spirit of the Games Makers forward into 2013 and beyond."

A worldwide television audience watched as floats representing London's boroughs competed with each other to bring festive cheer to the streets.

The parade made its way past some of the capital's best-known landmarks, including Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square and Parliament.

Earlier in the day, 200 clean-up staff had cleared around 160 tonnes of rubbish from the streets of Westminster following the capital's New Year's Eve party.