Welsh council wants to BAN English speakers from buying homes branding them a 'degenerative force'
The council has hit out at "degenerative" English speakers
GOOGLE
A council in Wales has called for a new housing development to be ring-fenced for Welsh speakers only in a scathing attack on "degenerative" English speakers.
Botwnnog community council, in northwest Wales, fears the plot of 18 affordable homes would be an "over-development" and end up in the hands of non-Welsh speakers.
It's not just officials in uproar - locals have raised "strong" objections to its planning application to Gwynedd's county council, the overarching authority for the area.
The community council also took aim at a "substantial influx" of second home-owners and tourists, which it said was a "degenerative force" undermining the growth of the Welsh language - echoing Welsh Government guidance to reach a million speakers by 2050.
Botwnnog community council fears the plot of 18 affordable homes would be an "over-development"
GWYNEDD COUNCIL/GOOGLE
It said a "high demand in the area for second homes, short-term accommodation and the power of the tourist trade has led to a substantial influx of non-Welsh speakers to the area for decades".
"This has led to a major decline in the percentage of Welsh speakers in the nearby communities of Llangïan/Abersoch.
"This degenerative force does not recognise boundaries.
"As we know, it only takes the presence of a few non-Welsh speaking people to turn the community's language of communication from Welsh to English."
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Botwnnog community council also took aim at a "substantial influx" of second home-owners and tourists
In another jab at one R Williams, who filed the application, the council said they "expect the community to do the necessary integration work".
"The lesson from the history of many Welsh communities is that this is not likely to happen", the council continued.
Its proposed solution is to limit the potential occupiers of the 18 new homes to Welsh speakers only.
But Williams has hit back, saying new homeowners and tenants would share "the same Welsh-speaking characteristics as the local population".
The applicant said the impact on Welsh would be "nil - or, at most, very modest, and certainly not sufficient to be materially harmful to the language."
The council has claimed 18 new homes would place an unnecessary burden on public services, including what it called an "already overwhelmed" local health service.
Williams accused them of "missing" the "key issue" - namely that the development "would provide affordable housing to meet evidenced local needs".
They also slammed the apparent expectation that locals would have to integrate to newcomers' language concerns as a "misrepresentation" of their argument.
The council will convene on September 9 to discuss the application further.