Call to postpone development plans over Census results

Submitted by Anhysbys on Llun, Mai 13th am 11:39 yb

WELSH councils should delay implementing new local development plans (LDP) until new government guidelines on their Welsh language impact are published, Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg has insisted.

Toni Schiavone, the language group’s sustainable communities spokesperson, says Cymdeithas members will seek meetings with council leaders, chief executives and planning officers to call for the postponement. The pressure group’s members will call on the local authorities to:

  • Postpone their Local Development Plan untils the revised Technical Advice Note 20 (TAN 20) is published to give proper consideration to the Welsh language - and revise the LDP in light of the new legal guidance.  

  • Create a report on the state of the Welsh language locally.

  • Set targets to increase the number and percentage of Welsh speakers in each community within the local authority by the end of the decade.

Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg have already asked councils for their responses to Cymdeithas’ “Living Manifesto”  - a set of policy recommendations to grow the language -  and Cymdeithas members have also been present in public consultation meetings about the LDPs. The campaigners have criticised councils for failing to assess its impact on the Welsh language locally. Over the last two years, only 16 assessments of developments’ impact on the language were held out of a total of almost 50,000 planning applications, only 0.03%.

Seven local planning authorities have already adopted their plans formally and it is expected that 10 others will adopt them during 2013. Toni Schiavone, Cymdeithas yr Iaith’s spokesperson on sustainable communities said: “If the Government’s new guidelines are to be meaningful, then they must inform the work of the council, who are, after all, responsible for planning. Otherwise, these new guidelines will be just a waste of paper. A number of authorities have already, or are close to, adopting their local development plans. So, as time passes, the rules are less and less relevant because the plans will have been done and dusted. People locally want to live through the medium of Welsh, but, at the moment, it seems that neither the council nor national government are serious about ensuring they can.”  

The Welsh Government’s consultation on the technical advice note (TAN) 20 came to an end in June 2011, almost two years ago. Toni Schiavone added: “All this delay in publishing these new guidelines is a mystery. It’s causing frustration, but most importantly, is highly damaging to the Welsh language. The Government started the process of revising these guidelines two years ago. Outmigration from Wales is the main factor behind the recent drop in the numbers of Welsh speakers. So, it’s essential the Government does everything in its power to put a halt to it. The delay in publishing the new statutory guidance suggests that the civil service is dragging its feet. It seems the Welsh language still isn’t a priority for them, even after the crisis revealed by the census results.”