A major rally is set to take place in Carmarthen this weekend in response to concerns over the falling number of Welsh speakers in the county. Welsh-language pressure group, Cymdeithas yr Iaith, will shift its emphasis from its campaign against the excess of second homes and AirBnBs to campaigning for a full property act.
It comes after data published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed that the number of Welsh speakers had fallen by 24,000 between 2011 and 2021. While the highest number of Welsh speakers over the age of three was in Gwynedd with 73,600 Welsh speakers and then in Carmarthenshire with 72,800, there had been a fall in the proportion of speakers in the language over the last decade in both counties.
But the percentage of Welsh speakers in Carmarthenshire drastically fell from 43.9% in 2011 to 39.9% in 2021. This was the largest decline in the percentage of Welsh speakers of any local authority area in the country, ONS reported.
Read more: Number of Welsh speakers fell over past decade, census data shows
The Cymdeithas yr Iaith rally will be hosted in Carmarthen on Saturday, January 14. Hundreds of supporters are expected to march through the town to the Welsh Government office in Picton Terrace, in which the pressure group will present seven demands to the government.
A Property Act for Wales will be one of the demands, which Cymdeithas says it will be presenting to the Welsh Government as an "urgent response" to the further decline in the proportion of Welsh-speakers as demonstrated by the Census.
Cai Phillips, a 20-year-old student from Blaen-y-Coed in Carmarthenshire, will be submitting the demand at the rally. As an individual who will eventually be looking for somewhere to live in the county, he expressed his concerns that people of his generation will not be able to afford a house in the area.
Ahead of the rally, he said: "Cymdeithas will continue to put pressure on Local Authorities to fully use their new powers to control the excess of second homes and holiday rentals, but the housing problem is far deeper here in Carmarthenshire. I shall be looking myself in the near future for somewhere to live in the county, but there is no way the vast majority of local young people can compete on the open market with much richer people moving from outside to live here.
"We shall therefore be changing the emphasis of the campaign to pressing for a full Property Act for Wales which will prioritise local people, and allow conditions on ownership of housing and land. Otherwise young people will be forced out of their communities and there will be no future for Welsh-speaking communities."
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