Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Community councils conducting their business in Welsh - the biggerst threat to the West since ISIS and Russia?

The busy Public Services Ombudsman for Wales, Nick Bennett, has "slammed" the community council of Cynwyd (population 548) for, according to the BBC, refusing to change a Welsh-only policy.  A member of the public had complained that the community council conducts its meeting in Welsh and that not all its documents are available in English, although the council insisted there was a "reasonable translation process". Last year, Nick Bennett's predecessor also investigated the community council of Llansannan (population 1,335) for not providing some form of simultaneous translation into English at its meeting, although the complainant in that case already had a restraining order against him due to his behaviour towards two of the councillors, so its understandable that there were not any volunteers to sit next to him to translate everything in his ear - poor man had only been living in Llansannan for nearly thirty years, and still can't understand "that dreadful language".
Well, there are 735 town and community councils in Wales, and I don't think I've ever heard about any of them getting bollocked for conducting their business entirely in English. I havent checked all 735, but I picked 10 at random (I did search for others, but these were the first 10 that had websites), and the results will shock you!



Council
Website
Agenda / Minutes
Barmouth Town Council
English only
English only
Bridgend Town Council
English only
English only
Dolgarrog Community Council
English only
English only
Llanelli Town Council
Bilingual
English Only
Llantwit Major Town Council
English only
English only
Nelson Community Council
English only
English only
New Quay Town Council
Bilingual
Bilingual
Rhuddlan Town Council
Bilingual
English Only
Trefnant Community Council
English only
English only
Ystradgynlais Town Council
English only
English only