Petition to rename Prince of Wales Bridge the Gareth Bale Bridge rejected
A petition calling for the Prince of Wales Bridge to be renamed the Gareth Bale Bridge has been rejected by Westminster and the UK Government.
Andrew Challis applied to create a petition to rename the bridge following Gareth Bale’s announcement that he was retiring from playing football.
Mr Challis wanted to change the name of the bridge to ‘Gareth Bale Bridge’ or ‘Y Bont Bale’.
The petition was rejected by the House of Commons Petitions Committee, which is held jointly by the UK Government and Westminster.
The committee said: “We do not accept petitions regarding honors or appointments. This includes requests to name public infrastructure in honor of individuals.”
The Welsh Parliament had also previously rejected the petition because they do not own the bridge.
Mr Challis said he had now written to Alun Cairns, who was Welsh Secretary when the bridge was renamed the Prince of Wales Bridge.
He has also written to the Welsh Secretary David TC Davies, Mark Drakeford, Adam Price and Andrew RT Davies.
Dream
Gareth Bale announced his retirement from football on January 9.
Bale, Wales’ most-capped men’s player with 111 appearances, confirmed the decision on social media.
The former Southampton, Tottenham and Real Madrid forward made his final competitive appearance during Wales’ World Cup group stage fixture with England on November 29.
Bale, 33, wrote on his social media accounts: “After careful and thoughtful consideration, I announce my immediate retirement from club and international football.
“I feel incredibly fortunate to have realised my dream of playing the sport I love.
“It has truly given me some of the best moments of my life. The highest of highs over 17 seasons, that will be impossible to replicate, no matter what the next chapter has in store for me.”
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I always think of it as Owain Glyndŵr Bridge rather than Charles Philip Arthur George Mountbatten-Windsor Bridge.
We should name it after Wales’ outstanding tiddlywinks player, Sydney Harbour.
Since it was wrongly renamed The Prince of Wales bridge, I adopted the new name which it’s affectionately known as “Bont y c**t” Now that we’ve got another Prince that we don’t want I’ll be calling it “Bont y c**t Bach”
What’s the connection between the money taken by the then Severn bridge toll gate cynically placed by the Tories as a insult on the Welsh side only damaging not only our economy and competitiveness while benefitting Whitehall Treasury coffers, which meant the Welsh had to pay to get into England and the English to get out of Wales, and president of the FA Prince William? Both support England.
No surprise, just tally it up in the list of insults we, as the Welsh, suffer from. Any self respecting nation would have no problem getting support for this sort of thing, but here in Wales, nah! It has to be named after a Foreign monarch who’s institution played a major role in eradicating the “ACTUAL” British monarchs centuries ago. He isn’t a Prince of Wales, and he isn’t a Prince of Britain!
Let’s just agree to call him and her prince and princess of england 👍sorted
Let’s just use Pont Gareth Bale and it will come into common usage. Also create a new location on FB and then get people to check in from it. Create a Wiki page and get it to top Google searches. There’s loads that can be done to normalise the name Pont Gareth Bale, it just needs someone to know how to do all this. Any ideas?
Silly idea. Without the tolls, it’s just a stretch of motorway, that doesn’t even need referencing. Annoy the imperialists by ignoethem. Nothing special to link to a hero. Rather see the Cardiff City stadium renamed or anything else football or local to his origins. Something with actual meaning.
It shouldn’t even have an English name. It currently should be called Pont Tywysog Cymru. ALL new names in Wales of new estates, streets, and buildings should have Welsh names.
Just tell people that you traveled over Pont Bale. It will soon catch on.
No surprises here, more chance of hell freezing over. Once independent we can give the people of Cymru a chance to rename the bridge. It will not matter what the UK government thinks. The English call the stretch of water between England and France, The English Channel, but the French name for it is – La Manche. Gain independence and get rid of the sign on the Welsh side of the bridge.
There was nothing wrong with it’s original name Second Severn Crossing
Ail Groesfan Hafren am byth.
If we call it the Gareth Bale bridge for long enough thats is what it will be known as.