What is the Greater London Authority?

The strategic government for London, covering transport, policing, planning, housing and the environment across all 32 boroughs plus the City of London.

Why does the pipeline fetch this rather than the browser?

Because the portal sends no CORS header, so a browser cannot read it directly. Its API is also non-standard in two ways worth knowing: the results sit under result.result rather than result.results, and the rows parameter is ignored entirely.

Yes. It comes from The London Datastore, refreshed through this site's pipeline. Nothing is invented or simulated, and if the source cannot be reached the saver reports that instead of drawing something plausible.

Does it cost anything or need an account?

No. Every screensaver here is free, runs in the browser and needs no sign-up. This one uses a public API that requires no key.

Does the Datastore cover all of England?

No. It is a portal for data about London, though some datasets may compare the capital with other regions or the national picture.

Are all datasets released under the same licence?

Not necessarily. Each dataset has its own page, which is where to check its licence and any attribution requirement before reusing it.

London, Published Screensaver

The London, Published screensaver streams the London Datastore in update order, showing what the Greater London Authority and its partners are publishing about the city. It runs in the browser with nothing to install; press ESC to exit.

How the London, Published screensaver works

The saver reads The London Datastore, refreshed through this site's pipeline.

No account and no key: the request goes straight from your browser, or from this site's own refreshed copy of the feed where the source does not permit browser access.

Values are drawn on a canvas that resizes with the window, so it works on a laptop or a wall display.

If the source is unreachable the saver says so on screen rather than showing stale numbers as though they were current.

What the London Datastore holds

The London Datastore is the open data portal created by the Greater London Authority (GLA), the regional government body for the capital. Its stated aim is to make data about the city freely available to use in any way people choose, and the GLA has said it wants other public sector organisations to release their data there too, so the catalogue mixes GLA material with datasets from partner bodies.

Entries are datasets, each with a title, a description, a publisher and one or more files. A great many are periodic releases of an existing series, such as a regular update, so ordering by update time will bring up recurring publications alongside genuinely new work. Some files are spreadsheets, others are maps or geospatial files for use in mapping software.

The names you see are catalogue titles and do not summarise what the numbers show. A title can be technical or abbreviated, and the geographic scope may be the whole of Greater London, a single borough or a smaller statistical area. Check the dataset's own page for definitions, dates and licence before drawing conclusions from any figure.

A worked example

Each row names a dataset, the organisation behind it, when it changed and how many files it holds. The GLA has run this portal since 2010, among the first city governments anywhere to do so, and the catalogue reflects a city that measures itself constantly — air quality, cycle hire, planning, housing, crime and famously granular ward-level statistics.

Settings & tips

Accent and Background recolour the display without changing the data.
Add it to a Multi-view grid to watch it alongside other live savers.
Press ESC at any time to leave fullscreen.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Greater London Authority?: The strategic government for London, covering transport, policing, planning, housing and the environment across all 32 boroughs plus the City of London.
Why does the pipeline fetch this rather than the browser?: Because the portal sends no CORS header, so a browser cannot read it directly. Its API is also non-standard in two ways worth knowing: the results sit under result.result rather than result.results, and the rows parameter is ignored entirely.
Is this real data?: Yes. It comes from The London Datastore, refreshed through this site's pipeline. Nothing is invented or simulated, and if the source cannot be reached the saver reports that instead of drawing something plausible.
Does it cost anything or need an account?: No. Every screensaver here is free, runs in the browser and needs no sign-up. This one uses a public API that requires no key.
Does the Datastore cover all of England?: No. It is a portal for data about London, though some datasets may compare the capital with other regions or the national picture.
Are all datasets released under the same licence?: Not necessarily. Each dataset has its own page, which is where to check its licence and any attribution requirement before reusing it.

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