Local Welsh language campaigners demonstrated outside Cardiff Queen Street Station today to demand that Network Rail remove the English-only sign on the building.
The Cardiff branch of Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg has been writing to Network Rail about its failure to meet basic language demands, such as bilingual signage. Despite a significant number of complaints, the sign on the top of the building has not been changed. The protest also drew attention to the failure to safeguard language rights, in situations like this, because of the delay in implementing the new Welsh language rights, known as Standards.
The group also made a call for the Queen Street station sign to be changed in its long-term vision for the language in the capital, Siarter Caerdydd. The campaigners will be meeting the leader of Cardiff Council, Phil Bale, soon to discuss matters such as planning, new developments in the city, and the status of the Welsh language.
In a letter to the Chief Executive of Network Rail sent ahead of the protest, Carl Morris, Chair of the Cardiff branch of Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg said: “We are going to be demonstrating because a number of Cardiff residents have been disappointed by the station's sign. In erecting this sign, Network Rail are demonstrating a total lack of respect for our country's official language, the language which thousands of commuters and visitors who pass through the station use in their work and everyday lives. Moreover, they have even failed to comply with their own design guidelines, which emphasise the importance of stations which respect local environment and communities.
“We believe this is part of a pattern of a lack of Welsh-medium services, and a lack of respect for the language, throughout the entire rail sector in Wales. Queen Street station, of course, was the station where the First Minister himself complained about a lack of Welsh language announcements on the platform. We believe, and we insist, that citizens in Wales should be able to use public transport through the medium of Welsh. This sign is typical of the many ways, large and small, that obstacles are placed in the way of those, like us, who want to live in Welsh in our capital city.”