Campaigners set up petition to demand company restores Welsh name for holiday park
A petition has been set up demanding that the owners of a holiday park change it back to the original name after renaming it in English.
Glan y Môr a mile north of Aberystwyth is to be called Aber Bay. Owners Allens Caravans Estates who bought the site in 2017 said that the previous “tarnished” name was associated with previous ownership, and that they had decided to change it to start from a clean slate.
But a petition said that the name had been changed by the owners, who are registered in Solihull in England, to one “that doesn’t even make sense to the area” and called on the owners to change it back. Glan-y-Môr remains the historic name for the area, it said.
It comes after Welsh language campaign group Cymdeithas yr Iaith called on the Welsh government to intervene to stop Welsh place names from being arbitrarily renamed.
“The new names are frequently replacing old and historic names that are woven into the fabric of our communities,” Cymdeithas yr Iaith chairman Jeff Smith said.
“As we understand it, the holiday park has been known as Glan y Môr for over a century and this is a descriptive and well-known name.
“Cymdeithas yr Iaith want to see a sustainable tourism sector in Wales that works with and supports local communities, language and culture.
‘We therefore see the renaming as a step in the wrong direction and would urge the owners of the holiday park to abandon the renaming proposals.
“The very fact that the owners of the holiday park are allowed to anglicise the original name underlines the need for legislation to protect Welsh language place names.
“After years of delay, we need to see action from the Welsh Government on this.”
‘Detrimental’
A spokesperson for Allens Caravans, which took over the site in 2017, said that they did not feel that the new name would “detract from Welsh connections. Quite the opposite.”
“Glan Y Môr did not in previous years have a good reputation and despite our best endeavors to market the park to new customers, we were met with complaints and issues prior to our ownership, something that tarnished the name and in turn was detrimental to moving forward with such a significant redevelopment,” they said.
The firm added that they were spending £5m to redevelop the site with a new clubhouse and facilities.
The name now appears on Google Maps as Aber Bay Holiday Park (aka Glan Y Môr).
In 2017 the Senedd rejected Plaid Cymru legislation that would protect the names of houses and farms, fields, natural features and landscapes.
All the opposition groups at the time – Plaid Cymru, UKIP and the Conservatives – supported the proposal, but Labour opposed and the vote was lost by 28 against to 25 for.
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Never mind just keeping Welsh names – it’s time to push back and reclaim the many that have already been changed because the English were too lazy to spell or pronounce them.
It’s not as if is Welsh isn’t phonetically consistent is it?
What were the Welsh Government doing rejecting this proposal? It was even supported by UKIP!
Mae angen sefydlu cronfa genedlaethol ar fyrder i brynu Cymru’n ôl, carreg wrth garreg, erw wrth erw, tyddyn wrth dyddyn. Ofer disgwyl dim byd gan Lywodraeth Vichy Cymru. Rhaid yw torchi llewys a gweithredu, yn null yr hen Gymry.
Just signed the petition and made a donation. I suggest other others do the same. It’s vitally important that we stop this.
Mark Drakeford enough is enough. Welsh Labour must pull their finger our and end this cultural vandalism. There should be a Welsh law enacted to protect the sanctity of our native heritage. Our place names are a record left to us by our ancestors over thousands of years.
Signed.
The fact that rthe previous proposal was supported by UKIP & the Tories……doesn’t that make people here think?!?
Makes one think that it’s not an issue divided along the classic “good guys, bad guys” lines. When a bunch of jingoistic Wanchors can see the merits in safeguarding Welsh names you have to wonder what drives those Labour members who couldn’t bring themselves to back the motion. Arrogant anti- Welsh sentiment still strong in the party that purports to represent the oppressed ? Or only the oppressed in far away places ?
It’s not as if Glan y Môr is difficult for an English-speaker to pronounce from the spelling and get it reasonably correct.
You can’t fathom how dense the Anglos can be especially when another language has straight forward phonetics compared to their own mangled tongue.
So dense that you recommended their children be m*rdered in cages. Yes. Big clever man you.
Had you read the article you would know that the name was changed because the previous one had a bad reputation.
Good job you want them to be shot in cages then eh?
They changed the name because the old on carried a bad reputation. Read the article. Unless you are as dense as all those “anglos”
Choose another Welsh one then!
Where I agree with you that Wales ills mirror Labour’s rule over the decades in power, but so does it Conservative rule through the backdoor. We are sandwiched by two opposing ideologies. One that has legitimacy from the Welsh electorate to rule. The other foisted on Wales by Conservative Whitehall using the English block vote and first past the post system. And don’t forget. Poverty in Wales is Unionist caused. We haven’t qualified three times for European Structural Funding because both Labour & Conservative were doing something right. All they seem to do is manage our poverty rather than end… Read more »
Wales certainly does need a conservative type voice to reflect the 18 to 26 per cent of folk who are on the right of political thinking. Some who add to comments on these pages have these voters as second home owners, incomers or ‘ uncle toms ‘ who would do Wales down……I am sure some indeed might be.? In the 79 referendum when I traveled all over Wales 🏴 in the YES cause I was amazed to find a fair number of these people open and welcoming. Not a majority to be certain but many active on our local yes… Read more »
More ethnic cleansing, it’s being going on for years. The Welsh government should make it so difficult to replace a Welsh name that it is next to impossible
If the company want to sever the association with the previous bad name, why not rename the place, but continue in the Cymraeg, not that hard to do. Putting the boot on the other foot, imagine someone changed the name of a resort in England form say “summer field” in Norfolk, to eg Pentre Hamdden Maes-yr- Haf, I am willing to bet my home, that it would not be allowed, under any circumstance..
Yes indeed, a new Welsh name would have been sensible. What these clever Marketers seem to have not spotted is that the site is not actually at Aberystwyth Bay (as if such a place existed). I know Aberystwyth is a short drive away, but as a consumer I would be mightily pissed off to discover that the site I thought I was booking in Aberystwyth was actually elsewhere. Bae Clarach/Clarach Bay would not have been too difficult an alternative to choose.