As thousands of people gathered in London to see out one of its most memorable years in recent history, people also partied on the streets of Edinburgh to welcome the new year.
An enormous and incredible firework display in central London kick-started Britain’s New Year celebrations in style.
About 250,000 people lined the banks of the Thames to witness the incredible display of pyrotechnics and lights.
The spectacle in Londonsaw a quarter-of-a-million people gather on the banks of the Thames to watch the 11-minute firework show which followed the traditional counting down of the final seconds by Big Ben.
‘Watched by hundreds of thousands in the capital and millions around the globe, London has proved, yet again, that it can pull off spectacular world-class events in style.’
Many of them waited for hours to secure the best viewpoints on the banks of the Thames, but fortunately it was a dry and mild night.
Young couples and groups of friends took to the Market Square in the Oxfordshire town to ring in 2013, with many kissing and hugging as the clocks struck midnight and heralded the start of the year.
There was no sign, though, of local MP Mr Cameron, who surprised audience members at the weekend when he and his family arrived to watch a production of pantomime Cinderella in nearby Chipping Norton.
Mayor of London Boris Johnson said: ‘What an amazing end to an incredible year.
London Ambulance Service said it had been a very busy night, with control room staff answering 2,603 emergency calls between midnight and 5am.
Treatment centres were set up in central London to attend to increased demand from people with ‘alcohol-related injuries’.
Paramedics treated 506 patients at the centres and took a further 49 to hospital.
Assistant chief ambulance officer John Pooley, who led the New Year’s Eve operation, said: ‘Demand on the service in the early hours was extremely high and a lot of the extra calls were because of alcohol-related injuries.
‘At the busiest point of the night, our staff were taking 635 emergency calls an hour.
‘They would expect to deal with 180 calls an hour on a normal night.’
This morning, 200 clean-up staff took just under six hours to clear around 160 tonnes of rubbish in Westminster.
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