THE RADNORSHIRE dialect is just as important as the Welsh language claims a senior councillor.
At a meeting of Powys County Council’s Liberal Democrat/Labour cabinet on Tuesday, March 4, senior councillors received the draft Welsh Language Promotion Strategy up to 2030.
The report explains that the number of Welsh language speakers in the county has fallen over the last 20 years and that the council hopes that adopting the strategy will halt this decline.
Cabinet member for planning and property, (Liberal Democrat) Cllr Jake Berriman took the opportunity to criticise comments made by Plaid Cymru group leader Cllr Elwyn Vaughan at a Planning committee meeting last month about the correct pronunciation of Dolau.
Dolau is a village near Llandrindod Wells.
At that meeting Cllr Vaughan said that the correct pronunciation of the name is Dolau and not “Dolly” or “Doli” – which had been continually used by the planning officer during a discussion about a planning application there.
Cllr Berriman said he “appreciated and accepted” that it’s the council’s legal duty to promote Welsh in Powys.
Cllr Berriman: “However it’s important that this is an inclusive approach.
“It should not be at the cost of the Radnorshire dialect which is as culturally important to those born and brought up here.
“Criticising and correcting a Radnorshire born and bred employee is not something that I would expect to see.
“I will be supporting this, but I think we need to temper some of our actions to respect the culture and traditions we have throughout Powys.”
Portfolio holder for a safer Powys, Cllr Richard Church said: “I fully support the paper, it is incredibly frustrating how long it takes to turn around the tanker and reversing the decline of the Welsh language.
“I believe the tanker is now turning, there is a pickup in the number of young people in our schools speaking Welsh and that is to be welcomed.”
He cautioned: “It will take time.”
Earlier on in the meeting Cllr Vaughan said: “This strategy is an attempt to rectify the failings of the last century, this is a foundation, but at least it’s going in the right direction.”
Cabinet went ahead and voted unanimously to back the new strategy.
Census records show that the numbers of Welsh language speakers in Powys fell from 21.1 per cent on 2001, to 18.6 per cent in 2011, further falling to 16.2 per cent on 2021.
The new strategy mentions that the percentage of Welsh speakers in the three to 15 and 16 to 24 age groups is higher than that for 50 years old and over all over the county apart from Ystradgynlais which is a Welsh language bastion.
In the next version of the strategy which will cover the years up to 2035 the council hope to increase the percentage of Welsh speakers in Powys to 20 per cent.
