‘A nation not a hotel’: Campaigners protest against Wales becoming a ‘vast holiday resort’
Stephen Price
A campaign group has held a protest in a Welsh-speaking heartland against second homes and the rapid process of anglicisation caused by an ‘influx’ of English speakers.
The move follows a decision from Llanpumsaint Community Council in Carmarthenshire, a once-predominantly Welsh speaking area to hold meetings only in English.
It has emerged that at the annual general meeting of in May, councillors decided to cancel the simultaneous translation service at meetings.
A representative from Mudiad Eryr Wen said: “The encroachment of second homes in places like Borth is hollowing out our communities, driving locals from their family homes, and replacing them with husks that stand lifeless for most of the year.
“Communities where the sound of “Shwmae!” and warm exchanges of “Sut wyt ti?” were commonplace, are now silent for months at a time. This creeping cancer is stripping our communities of their character, weakening the bonds that hold us together, and turning our nation into a vast holiday resort for the wealthy few. Therefore, we remind them:
“Cenedl nid Gwesty.”
“A nation, not a hotel.”
“Influx of newcomers”
The group continued: “Equally vile is the abandonment and neglect of our nation’s mother tongue in a village where Welsh once rang through every street. Sir Gâr has endured much in recent years, with an influx of newcomers who disregard our culture and erode our heritage.
“That influx has brought about the decrease of Welsh speakers in recent times, and will continue to do so unless something is done.”
They added: “We will not stand by while small-minded anglophiles drag our language toward extinction. We call on every community council to reject the path taken in Llanpumsaint, or be branded for what they are: anti-Welsh councils.
“Heed the warning, for the day may soon come when travellers pass through the “Church of the Five Saints” and hear not a single word of its own tongue. We will not stop until the process of anglicisation is halted, and utterly reversed.”
Council
The council’s decision made headline news across Wales, after minutes were brought to light. The minutes read: “Members of the public are welcome to come and listen to the meeting, but space will be limited.
“Usually, the meetings are held in both Welsh and English but as the council will have only one Welsh speaker now, it was agreed to suspend the translation services for the time being. This will be reviewed at the November meeting.”
A spokesperson for Audit Wales said: “Matters relating to how the council functions bilingually would be a matter for the Welsh Language Commissioner.”
Under the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011, community councils are not subject to Welsh Language Standards regulated by the Welsh Language Commissioner so far as their internal workings are concerned.
Responding to the decision of the community council to cease translation facilities, Siân Howys, deputy chair of Cymdeithas yr Iaith, responsible for overseeing campaigns, said: “This is another example of the need to regulate and place expectations on more bodies to provide services and work through the Welsh language. Town and community councils are an important part of our communities and are responsible for a wide range of services that people come into contact with every day.
“Welsh Language Standards need to be imposed on community councils and on Audit Wales, the statutory auditor of public bodies, as soon as possible. This could be done immediately and all parties standing in the Senedd election should commit to setting Standards in every possible domain if they are elected next May.”
A Carmarthenshire political source added: “There’s a trend in some Welsh-speaking areas for incomers from England or non-Welsh speakers to take charge of the lowest rungs of local government.”
Mission
Mudiad Eryr Wen, who shared photos of their protest on Instagram, describe themselves as a brand new and energetic approach to defending our nation and campaigning for our eventual independence. They say they are “a movement and community created by the youth, for the youth”.
According to the group: “Our nation stands upon a precipice. Westminster is growing increasingly heavy-handed towards devolution and nationalism in both Cymru and in Scotland, second home ownership and a failing education system is endangering our language, the reckless pursuit of growth and unfettered capitalism is destroying our environment…”
Their mission is to “rally the youth of Cymru as one united front, stood firmly in opposition to the destruction of our self-determination, language, identity and environment.”
The protesters targeted the Anglicised names ’St Asaph’, ‘Ruthun’ and ‘Denbigh’, leaving behind only the indigenous Welsh names (Llanelwy, Dinbych and Rhuthun).
They say: “In the face of impending Anglicisation and climate collapse, other organisations have failed to grasp the severity of the situation we face”.
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Take away our language and we will forget who we are:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/aug/12/ngugi-wa-thiongo-aminatta-forna-decolonisation-language-conquest
Da iawn. Ond pa blaid sydd mewn grym yn Sir Gâr, yn bendithio codi tai di-angen i wladychwyr. Ffei arnynt’ elynion y genedl. ‘Môr glên am aur gelynion / ac mor rad y Gymru hon’!
And who are we?, the same as ever other living man or women, the human race, get over it and stop being basinwashed
I concur wholeheartedly with Eryr Wen and Cymdeithas yr Iaith which is why I launched this petition
We need a link to this, Arfon – it doesn’t open asa a photo
https://deisebau.senedd.cymru/deisebau/246685
Diolch am rannu
Diolch am rannu.
Diolch Arfon, am lansio’r ddeiseb hon – dw i wedi ei llofnodi ac wedi ei rhannu hefyd ar fy nhudalen Facebook. (dw i’n frodor o ardal Y Preseli)
Diolch am rannu
As a learner of Cymraeg and an english immigrant of 25 years, I have always wanted Cymraeg to be the prominent language. All public signage should be in Cymraeg only, for example. When I lived in Spain and Italy I learnt the languages quickly, because it was not possible to drop into english when I got into difficulties. Had that been the case here I would be fluent by now. I would love it if more speakers of Cymraeg simply refused to speak english to people like me-it is surprising how much of a language you know when there is… Read more »
Refusing to speak English is extremely difficult – almost impossible I would argue, as you are up against 800 years of mental conditioning. But that of course is the answer – for businesses to have only Welsh signs, cafes with only Welsh menus, ATMs with only Welsh options, etc.
Diolch am eich geiriau calonogol David a diolch am fynd i’tr ymdrech i ddysgu ein hiaith ni – mae croeso mawr iawn i chi yma yng Nghymru fach. Fel chi, dw i wedi treulio sawl blwyddyn yn byw ac yn gweithio yn Ffrainc ac yn Yr eidal ac wedi ymdoddi ac ymgartrefi i’r gwledydd yna trwy ddysgu’r ddwy iaith. Mae’n brofiad trawsnewidiol onid ydy? Dw i gartref nawr, yn ardal Y Preseli.
Diolch yn fawr i chi, dw i’n falch iawn byw yn Gymru.
A party born out of the worst kind of john bull, union jack waving, english nationalism won a council by election in a landslide last week in a Carmarthenshire community (Llangennech) where almost half the residents are Welsh speakers. Make no mistake there is a very dark and dangerous political force emerging in Wales – its called ‘Reform’ – which if it is successful could spell the end of the Welsh nation and its language. If we want to save our nation and its language Reform’s progress in Wales must be thwarted – its as simple and stark as that.
You’re exactly right to highlight this. I’ve said before I suspect Reform will try to create language as a wedge issue in Wales. They’ll target the same kind of people they now target in England; working class people in areas which lost their heavy industry. It happens in Wales that they’re also the places with the fewest Welsh speakers. Reform will paint a picture of a “war on English speakers” (like the war on the motorist) and set themselves up as the vanguard of the fight against the ‘dead language’. Dangerous and divisive, and they’ll drive people apart if we… Read more »
If incomers and non-Welsh speakers are taking over community councils, it may be that Cymraeg speakers are not interested in getting involved, particularly the youth? In the same way, someone local must be selling property to incomers in the first place? Also, it is jobs and the economy that sustain local communities including rural schools, public services and the language and there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of coherent policies from Welsh Government in that arena? Campaigners would be better advised to focus on the underlying causes rather than Llanpumpsaint.
Sure if you say so bud. Claiming that everything’s okay isn’t helping. Maybe the declining Welsh population isn’t being voted in by the increasingly growing outsider population and are instead voting for their own kind? Did you not think of that? Sure we can urge the government to assist but what’s the point of letting these councillors walk all over the language? I highly doubt you’re “undecided” when you talk like a borderline reformer. Come next May, will you betray your homeland?
It is those who posture and engage in empty rhetoric who betray, whilst failing to address the root causes of decline. Are you standing for election to a community or principal council??
I think it is slightly more complicated than that. There are also the social dynamics to consider. Many loud, arrogant incomers think they can solve all social problems and actively promote themselves to get onto bodies like community councils and school governing bodies in a way that locals would never dream of doing. There are also numerous new housing estates being built in Carmarthenshire, which are totally un-needed, as the natural population is falling. And guess who buys these houses? So it’s very often not the case of local people selling to incomers. And the Welsh Government of course have… Read more »
Some of the retiree incomers in our village in Anglesey are great to have. Others I feel have a ‘we know best’ attitude and superiority complex. it’s a difficult one, but rural wales and urbanised England (and Cardiff) are very different places. The article yesterday on pheasant shooting really highlighted that
It may be more complicated; but lack of economic opportunity = the exodus of young people = declining school numbers and so on.
Your description of what’s happening in Carmarthenshire underscores the difference between rhetoric and conviction. In Wrexham, Cllr Marc Jones and others acted, successfully challenging the Local Development Plan. If you are right about unneeded development in Sir Gar, why did the Plaid led Council and Messrs Price and Campbell not follow suit?
It’s the estate agents that do the selling, and they tend to have little or no interest in protecting the Welsh language, only in selling a house. I see no reason, however, why a seller couldn’t stipulate a preference for a Welsh speaking purchaser. There’s no reason why it couldn’t become the norm in the Bro Gymraeg.
Not so. Estate agents are precisely that agents – not vendors.
The marketing and the deals are done through the estate agents. The vendors leave it to them to find a purchaser.
Yes, I agree. A language is kept alive by its people. If the people aren’t there, the holiday homes take over. In my part of south Ceredigion, the young people are bi-lingual and switch between the two easily often in the same sentence. Here, Cymraeg is seen as ‘cool’. Encouraging them to stay in their own neighbourhood as adults is the challenge. Without them the schools close, and houses are then up for sale and the families who are left cannot afford to buy.
Absolutely. There is much that could – and should – be done. Serious investment in rural broadband for a start; a rural economic policy which prioritises jobs and growth in those areas (unlike the Sustainable Farming scheme), transport links between main towns (not pie in the sky schemes like reopening the railway to Aberystwyth) and a fairer distribution of funding to rural authorities rather than the Senedd doing its best to impersonate Cardiff Council.
The 4 billion HS2 ripoff would have paid to reopen the Aberystwyth to Carmarthen line. Are you happy having to go to a foreign country when you want to travel by train across Cymru?
That’s the problem with this line. Nowhere near enough people would use it to justify reopening it in the first place. The money would be far better spent elsewhere. PS if Welsh Labour had not refused the devolution of rail infrastructure 20 years ago (a decision confirmed by the subsequent coalition government with Plaid), Cymru would have had the cash. More empty rhetoric.
Hospitality is not good base for the economy or culture.
That isn’t hospitality though, that’s ethnocide and destruction of culture. Considering your name, I doubt you have much relevance to the topic.
Once you resort to cheap insults you have lost the argument.
What brought this into context for me recently was a board in a pub in Pembrokeshire. It was a downward list of written complaints, such as more help for famers, but it ended at the bottom with – “No Wales” ! As a nation we should welcome immigration but not if it begins to threaten our culture, language and very country.
Along with other rural areas in Britain, young people left for the towns and cities in search of work. It is this that has hollowed out communities. Rural Wales is not the only example, Cornwall has suffered the same problem. Skills training for new technologies could reverse this trend, and keep young people in their communities with well paid jobs.
Anecdotally, it is the same trend I see internationally – when I’ve been to China, France or Brazil or anywhere in between, urbanisation is the trend. Young people, young families want to live in cities and the UK is no different
Spain and Italy have the same issues. What were previously agricultural communities are now hoping to encourage new families to re-locate to keep those small towns and villages alive.
The issue is that there are few well-paying employment opportunities in the Bro Gymraeg that will enable young people to stay in their own locality and buy somewhere to live.
Reads like the signs and statements were made by the Carmarthenshire branch of the EDL.
We live in a country called the United Kingdom. And yet, for many who move into Welsh-speaking areas, it doesn’t always feel united. It feels… unfamiliar. Beautiful, yes. Welcoming, often. But also quietly unsettling. People come here for the landscape—the hills, the coast, the charm of village life. They come seeking peace. But what they often find is something deeper: a culture that speaks in a language they don’t understand. And with that, a sense of being on the outside looking in. There’s an angst that settles in—not loud, not angry, but persistent. It’s the feeling of walking into a… Read more »
Cyfraniad i’r ddadl sydd a’i lygad yn ei le – deallus, cywir, huawdl – diolch ~ A contribution to the discussion that is spot-on – intelligent, accurate and eloquent – diolch!
Cytuno!
I guarantee Luxembourg or Liechtenstein natives are not outcompeted by incoming German or French settlers. Why? Because they are independent states with strong homegrown economies and so the playing field is level. That is the answer.
Shocked to hear this. Cyngor Llanmumpsaint in the 1970s was a monoglot Welsh-speaking council and as far as I can recall all residents were native Cymry back then. Our nation is undergoing the very same colonisation as what the native American nations faced in the 18th and 19th Centuries – the rapid expansion of colonisation leading to the eventual diminution of native hegemony, influence and ultimately cultural/ethnic elimination. Unfortunately, I fear that standing up and really confronting these issues head-on are beyond the ability of what’s left of the Welsh nation. There’s no Glyndwr or Gwerin Owain coming to the… Read more »
Ydw, dwi’n credu! Of course Cymru and Cymraeg will survive, as they have survived hundreds of years of english attempts to destroy them.
Gobeithio bod chi’n iawn David J, ond yn fy oes i gallaf dystio i ddirywiad enfawr yn ein Cymreictod ers y 50au/60au a nid yn unig dirywiad broydd Cymreig ond hefyd colli gymaint o’n ddiwydiannau traddodiadol hefyd. Mae Cymru yn newid yn gyflym o fod yn genedl Gymreig bywiog fel yr oedd yn y 50au/60au i wlad sy’n colli ei hetifeddiaeth yn ddyddiol ac yn neshau fwy-fwy i adlewyrchu bywyd y Llundain fodern cosmopolitanaidd ni’n gweld ar ein teledau bob dydd. Pob lwc i’r pobl optimistaidd fel chi sy’n credu fedrwch chi herio y cyfan a’i newid. Mae angen nerth… Read more »
When the English say this about immigrants they’re bigoted far right racists, so what’s the difference.
People need to get a grip with this we are all of the same blood we are the human race the only race on the earth shared by living men and women, you been so brainwashed you can no longer see pass your own noise. It because of this the world is full of wars and death, your all divided by the very courpt people you put into power, wake up and start taking back control
You are right (no matter how many thumbs down you get from the small minded on here). Some people don’t get the difference between being pro Wales and anti English.
A nation full of scroungers that are workshy