The streets of central London were awash with colour as hundreds of thousands of people joined the annual Pride parade.

Organisers predicted that as many as 1.5 million people would turn out for the event in what has been hailed as the Britain’s biggest and most diverse Pride parade yet.

The capital was filled with rainbows and glitter on Saturday afternoon, some 600 groups, a 25 per cent increase on last year, began marching through the streets for the annual burst of colour, music and dance.

The annual parade started at Portland Place, moving down Oxford Circus, passing along Regent Street, through Piccadilly Circus to Pall Mall and passing Trafalgar Square before finishing up on Whitehall.

This year’s festival comes 50 years since the Stonewall uprising in New York – a moment which changed the face of the gay rights movement around the world. Parade groups honoured five decades of activism, protests and victories, and those behind this year’s march have said it is an opportunity for people to stand up against bigotry and hatred in all its forms.

This year’s parade aims to champion diversity, with the introduction of a new World Area at Golden Square in Soho, in a bid to increase the visibility of black, Asian and minority ethnic (Bame) LGBT+ people.