Watch: Children in village dominated by second homes perform rap calling for action on housing crisis
Children in village dominated by second homes have performed a rap calling for greater action to alleviate the housing crisis.
Pupils of Ysgol Nefyn primary school in Gwynedd performed the rap ‘Hawl i fyw Adra’ (a right to live at home) that borrows its title from a campaign set up to put pressure on the Welsh Government to take action to resolve the issue.
The rap was performed by pupils of Ysgol Nefyn at the launch of a new book documenting the peak of the last housing crisis in the 1980s.
Ga’ i Fyw Adra? (Can I live at home?) by Haf Llewelyn is a novel set during the hard winter of 1981, a period when house prices were rising and young people in rural Wales could not buy homes in their localities. According to publishers Gwasg Carreg Gwalch, the novel “remains relevant to life in Wales today.”
Nefyn is a small town on the northwest coast of the Llŷn Peninsula in Gwynedd. According to the 2011 Census, it is the community with the 28th highest percentage of Welsh speakers in Wales with 74.2% of residents aged three and over able to speak Welsh.
But recent figures show that in Gwynedd, 27% of houses were sold as second homes during the last year. In Nefyn itself, around a fifth of properties are second homes whilst in nearby Abersoch, 46% are.
The proliferation of second homes has pushed house prices beyond the reach of people who live in the community all year round.
lyrics
The lyrics to ‘Hawl i fyw Adra’ have been loosely translated below, without rhyme:
This is Ysgol Nefyn,
sharing an important message
about your right to live at home.
So listen up.
We are the people of the future
Being able to live locally is essential.
House prices are so expensive,
Hundreds of thousands and still rising.
Local people are unable to get a home,
And are having to leave
whilst visitors come and enjoy the scenery,
on the beaches, sipping their G&T!
Pen Llŷn. Wales. Language. Culture. Passion. Community. Tradition.
Second home. Protest. Save. Fight.
The right to live at home.
You have the right to live at home.
So wait, and listen up.
We are the people of the future
Being able to live locally is essential.
Don’t steal our nation.
Wait. Stop.
Do you have to come here
to turn off the lights on every single street?
All that glitters isn’t gold.
Home means language and culture
and much more to us.
Crying, praying, protesting.
We just want the right to live at home.
We are on a journey to save the language,
Let’s roll up our sleeves to get the job done.
You have the right to live at home.
So stop, listen!
We are the people of the future
Being able to live locally is essential.
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O enau plynt bychain – gwirionedd pob gair. Rhaid i ni gyd sefyll yn y bwich. Rhaid brwydro i achub ein diwylliant, ein hiaith a dyfodol ein plant. Mae gennynt hawl i fyw adre.
Ardderchog! Really inspiring, These children SHOULD BE our future, but they will possibly be denied that chance through a combination of unfettered incoming capitalism and a supine political establishment at The Bay.
It’s a shame their parents own the holiday let they inherited or decided to sell up with a big profit and move inland, wait for house prices to increase, sell up with a big profit and move to another welsh village that has cheap houses. Seems like a local problem
They should be rapping to ask Cyngor Gwynedd to permit more housebuilding in the area. Nefyn could (at least) double in size without affecting the AONB.
I wonder what the second home situation is like on the Channel Islands, isle of Man and the Scilly Islands. I hazard a guess far more stringent than mainland Britain?