The Southall Vaisakhi parade, one of the biggest Sikh festivals of its kind in Europe, was attended by the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, London Assembly Member (for Ealing and Hillingdon) Dr Onkar Sahota and Ealing Southall MP, Virendra Sharma.

They attended a ceremony at the Sri Guru Singh Sabha gurdwara, Havelock road, Southall in the morning. This is where the Vaisakhi procession starts from and finish at Park Avenue’s Sri Guru Singh Sabha.

The procession starts at approximately 11.30 am -12.30 pm, turns right onto King Street, and passes through King Street and The Green where it heads towards Southall railway station.

The front of the procession arrived at the mini roundabout next to Southall Train station at around 2:30pm.

The procession then continued on to South Road, took a right on to the High Street at about 4.30pm. The back end of the main procession reached Ealing Town Hall at around 5pm.

It then takes a right from Uxbridge Road on to Green Drive, turns right on to Park Avenue, and finally reaches its destination at Gurdwara Sri Guru Singh Sabha on Park Avenue at approximately 6pm.

At around 6:25pm Southall Broadway Neighbourhood Police tweeted “Uxbridge road and roads in south of the railway now open. South road still closed”

At 7pm “South road reopened. Only Park Avenue remains closed for the time being. Traffic is still backed up."

There are lots of FREE food stalls all along the procession route and lots of queues. There is bound to be lots of waste. The organisers and the food stalls were actively doing their bit. Lots of bags already full on the pavements very early in the day. Lots of people carrying bin bags to collect the rubbish. Still expecting rubbish on the streets due to the sheer number of people that attend and the amount of food consumed.

Even with that amount of people the atmosphere is ALWAYS friendly.

The actual Vaisakhi day will be celebrated on Friday 14th April 2017.

Happy Vaisakhi