LHCb vertex locator, overview and recent progress

The LHCb experiment is dedicated to the study of b-hadron physics. The vertex locator (VELO) is the sub-detector that reconstructs primary and secondary vertices, which are of importance for the processes under study. The VELO detector is described and results from a beam test with close to final components are presented. The paper also reports on the reconstruction of interaction vertices in the silicon detectors and a method to correct for cross talk in the serial analogue link is described.