We will open a new front in our housing campaign at a "Nid yw Cymru ar Werth" (Wales is not for sale) rally in Nefyn this weekend. Hundreds are expected to march through the small Gwynedd town at 1.30pm Saturday (29/3) to a rally in the town centre followed by a public meeting where community enterprise Antur Aelhaearn will be launching its Community-led Housing Project.
The latest rally in Nefyn is a way of thanking the local Town Council for its pioneering work in lobbying central government for powers to control excesses of second homes and holiday lets. Local Councillor Iwan Rhys Evans will tell the rally of his own difficulties in trying to find a home in his own community.
The aim of the rally is to keep the pressure both on central government and on Welsh political parties to work on a comprehensive Property Act for Wales to regulate the open housing market to be introduced as a priority for the new Senedd after next year' election. Cymdeithas' draft of a Property Act as well as the recommendations of the Comission for Welsh-speaking Communities Report call for powers for local communities to initiate their own housing projects according to the needs of local people, building on the initiative of Antur Aelhaearn and others. In a new development, Cymdeithas will also be announcing in the rally that more attention must now be given to the social housing sector, and conditions for permitting affordable homes, given that research has shown that most local people in these communities have been priced out of the open housing market.
Speaking at the rally on behalf of Cymdeithas, Walis George is expected to say that "communities have lost confidence in the planning system and are suspicious of developers and of housing associations". He will proceed to announce that Cymdeithas yr Iaith support the call by Nefyn Town Council and Aberdaron and Tudweiliog Community Councils that the county Council should adopt and implement a Local Letting and Selling Policy which has the promotion of the Welsh language as a material consideration. He will tell the rally:
"We welcome the recently-published legal opinion given to the Welsh Language Commissioner confirming the right to consider the language in its policy of letting social housing. We call on Housing Associations and Local Authorities to take urgent action to implement letting policies which prioritise local Welsh-speakers in Llyn and similar communities."
Cymdeithas believes that, by definition, the County Council's corporate aim of promoting Welsh-speaking communities should lead to a letting policy aimed at increasing the percentage of Welsh-speaking households.
At a Public Meeting following the rally, the housing policy will be put into the wider context of developing a sustainable future for Welsh-speaking communities. The CEO of the "Cymunedoli" network of community-led enterprises, Haydn Wyn Jones, will pay tribute to Selwyn Williams who died earlier this month and is know as the architect of "Cymunedoli"