The British village where English speakers aren’t welcome

Plans for a new housing estate in North Wales were blocked after concerns that English incomers could cause ‘significant harm’

Take a drive through North Wales, past the craggy peak of Yr Wyddfa, then head west down the Llŷn Peninsula until you are closer to Ireland than England, and you may just stumble across the tiny village of Botwnnog.
Five miles inland, there is little to recommend it to visitors. There is a chapel, doctor’s surgery and primary school, but other than that, just a strip of houses; many of them council. The nearest shop is just under two miles away in Sarn Meyllteyrn. There isn’t even a pub. 
One distinguishing feature, however, is the strength of the Welsh language. Leaflets on the community noticeboard contain no trace of English – nor does the community website. Local businesses have Welsh names, and the lilting noise from the school playground that lifts onto the breeze is distinctly incomprehensible to a typical English ear.
Some 65 per cent of this remote region speak Welsh – the highest of any area in Wales – and the lack of tourism means there is little to dilute it.
But local passion for this mother tongue has now reached new heights with an attempt by Botwnnog Community Council to decree that new residents in the village should be Welsh speaking. Last week, the council managed to temporarily block plans for 18 new social houses to be built in the village, saying the developers could not guarantee they would go to native speakers. 
In contentious – and some say discriminatory language – documents submitted by the community council to the planning department of Gwynedd County Council stated that English incomers might pose a “danger to the Welsh language and the fabric of the community” and be a “degenerative influence”. 
In an ensuing planning meeting, one councillor, Huw Rowlands, said the proposal could cause “significant harm” to the Welsh language, adding: “If the wrong decision is made, it will have drastic consequences.” Gareth Williams, another councillor, said the occupants would “be from outside the area” and that their presence would be “detrimental to the culture”.
“Everyone in the local area feels very strongly against it,” he added.
Some, of course, may feel they have a point. Just a short drive away, where signs written in English welcome visitors to the picturesque towns of Abersoch and Llangian, locals complain about the proliferation of second homes and constant migration from England.
But for other locals, the assertion that affordable homes should go to only Welsh-speakers has strayed from protecting the language into blatant discrimination.
Speaking to The Telegraph, one said: “It’s outrageous. The Welsh language hasn’t always been promoted in this area so some older people who have lived here all their lives don’t even speak it. 
“Why should they be penalised like this or made to feel unwelcome? It’s awful.”
While another said: “Let’s be realistic. We just need people to move here whoever they are. There is nothing here, not even a shop. If we don’t have new blood, then the whole community will die and the Welsh language with it. The economy has been hammered in this area because of second home owners selling up and we just need people here.” 
Some in the property industry are equally baffled and affronted.  
Pete Mugleston, founder of Online Mortgage Advisor, says: “If it were a property in England and there was a requirement for the buyer to speak English, there would be palpable headlines and outrage.”
Back in sleepy Botwnnog, as people stroll with their dogs or pop to the surgery under a grey sky, the publicity attracted by the row has been unwelcome, with locals reluctant to discuss the matter in public – either in Welsh or English. 
But the demand seems to tie in with a growing confidence in the Welsh language and its right to be preserved. Not only have Snowdonia National Park and the Brecon Beacons been renamed with their historical Welsh titles – respectively Eryri National Park and Bannau Brycheiniog, the Welsh Government has also made huge progress on its pledge to generate 1m Welsh speakers by 2050. In 2001, there were 580,000. Some figures suggest that number could now be as high as 900,000 (although, the most recent census put the figure at 538,000). 
But alongside this growing confidence may perhaps come something more distasteful: an expanding sense of nationalism and rise in anti-English sentiment, perhaps driven by an influx of those east of Offa’s Dyke.
Data from Compare My Move showed there was a 30 per cent rise of English moving to Wales between 2020 and 2022, driven by cheaper living costs and lower house prices (on average, Welsh houses are almost £100,000 cheaper than those in England). Meanwhile, last year, a survey by American Express showed that Wales was the favoured place for people in the UK to holiday, beating Cornwall, Devon and the Lake District.
But some say this influx and increased pressure on housing stock has also brought with it increased crime in summer months, anti-social behaviour and a change to communities. It has even led to concerns over a resurgence of ‘old school nationalism’. In January this year, an Aberystwyth resident, originally from Birmingham, received a poison pen note in red ink, with a message to “go back home”. 
According to one Botwnnog resident, who would not be named, this is the real reason the council blocked the proposed development. 
“The Welsh language is a red herring. It’s not about that at all,” she says. “It’s about the type of people you get – and if we will get people from other social housing projects.
“We may get people from Liverpool or Birmingham, and we don’t want that here. We know crime can go up when this happens as it’s just riff raff. The area is now inundated with them and they drive around in their 4x4s on these narrow lanes and don’t give a monkey’s that you’re local. We currently have low crime here, but we know what can happen when we get people in from outside.”
The plan for Botwnnog’s new social housing development amounted to a series of bungalows that would have been built on farmland at the edge of the village. According to the developers, only those on the affordable housing register in Gwynedd would be able to apply for the proposed housing.
But at another social housing scheme built roughly a decade ago on the edge of Botwnnog, it was clear when The Telegraph visited that at least some of the residents are not local or Welsh speakers. 
As Richard Williams, who owns the local Ty Newydd pub in nearby Sarn Meyllteyrn, says: “There’s two sides to this. The tax on second homes means the summer economy has been badly hit. We need people here spending money. 
“But the other social housing estate has some Polish in it so why will this be any different? It won’t be locals and we worry about transfers from social housing projects in other areas.”
According to Gwynedd County Council, the plan for the development is now in a “cooling off” period before it is reviewed again. But as for the legality of who and who doesn’t have a right to live there, it is slightly murky. 
Tom Barton, planning partner at law firm Mishcon de Reya, says: “It’s well established that there can be a requirement for a local connection when social housing allocation takes place, and I think this is ultimately what the community are getting at here.
 “This is not the same as the language issue. I think people instantly feel uncomfortable about the language point, because you could say this is a community where they don’t want anyone to speak another language, which would obviously be horrific.”
And therein lies the rub, with local councillors seemingly all too aware of accusations of racism. At the recent meeting, one councillor, Gruff Williams, said: “People say we are racists when we are trying to protect our language. It makes it difficult for people to stand up against these policies.”
As for the local MP for Dwyfor Meirionnydd, Liz Saville-Roberts, she is attempting to walk a very fine line as a way out of the debacle. 
She tells The Telegraph: “This area is where Welsh is spoken by the majority of the people who live there. Planning and housing policies are among the key tools to make sure that the use of Welsh in local communities continues into the future.
“I would urge anyone who is thinking of moving here to learn some Welsh. I’m born and bred English, and it’s what I did and I know from personal experience that it opens so many doors.”