Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (The Welsh Language Society) has welcomed the success of local members campaign after Merthyr Council launched a partly bilingual website, but have expressed concerns at the lack of Welsh provision by the council in other departments.
After a year of campaigning by local members that led to an official inquiry by the Welsh Language Commissioner the councils bilingual website went online at the start of the new year.
Concerns were raised a year ago when it became apparent that Merthyr Tudful Council were not fulfilling their Welsh language scheme. Local Welsh speakers claimed that the authoroties where not implementing their language scheme including failing to provide a bilingual website.
An inquiry by the Welsh Language Board (now The Welsh Language Commissioner), which was sparked by the local Cymdeithas grwps complaints, found that the council had broken their language scheme in 4 out of 5 areas.
Spokesperson for Cymdeithas yr Iaith Morgannwg Gwent said: ‘We welcome this latest development and look forward to a completely bilingual website. At the moment many of the front pages are in Welsh, which is a big improvement on how things were, but there are huge gaps as regards English only forms and essential basic information.’
He added:’We will continue to hold talks with the council and the Commissioners office to ensure that all of the councis Welsh language services improve. It isn’t right that our members have to complain and threaten the council with official inquiries because they are breaking the law by not providing Welsh language services. They should understand that more and more people in the county want to live through the medium of Welsh, or that their children can live in Welsh. The councils activities have to match the peoples hopes.’
The news comes shortly after nearly 200 people gathered at a protest outside the council offices at the start of the year as part of the organisations ‘Dwi eisiau byw yn Gymraeg’ campaign (‘I want to live in Welsh’).
Merthyr Councils partially bilingual website: http://www.merthyr.gov.uk/Cymraeg/Pages/default.aspx