The communities pressure group Cymuned’s weekly email is now reaching over 1000 non-Welsh-speakers. Cymuned has been working to win support from people who don’t speak Welsh by showing how the problems facing Welsh-speaking communities are similar to problems facing communities throughout Wales. This latest milestone shows how that work is beginning to bear fruit.

‘A new sector of the population has started to give us some very serious support,’ says Aran Jones, Cymuned’s Chief Executive. ‘We are extremely pleased to see this happening, although we still need to work hard to keep increasing the numbers who receive the Welsh language weekly email.’

Cymuned believe that campaigns such as Homes4Locals.com, Shops4Locals.com and Tax200.com offer a golden opportunity for Welsh-speakers and those who do not speak the language to work together on matters that are causing significant problems across the entire country.

‘Creating a sustainable, local housing market, a sustainable local economy, and having genuinely bilingual county councils in the Welsh-speaking areas,’ says Aran Jones, ‘would go a very long way towards ensuring a flourishing future for the Welsh language. By winning increasing support from people who don’t speak Welsh for the first two campaigns, we believe it is much more likely that they will then also support the third.’

For more details, contact Cymuned’s office on 01758-612712.

Chris Myant, director of CRE Cymru, will be speaking in the communities pressure group Cymuned’s Annual Conference in the Penrhyndeudraeth Memorial Hall on Saturday 14th of April. The Commission’s largest ever project in Wales, the ‘Croeso’ project, will be under discussion, and Chris Myant will consider the responsibility communities face to welcome newcomers, and the responsibility newcomers face to integrate into their new communities.

‘We are particularly pleased to welcome Chris Myant to our Annual Conference this year,’ said Aran Jones, Cymuned’s Chief Executive. ‘We have worked increasingly closely with the Commission over the last three years, and we are very grateful for their support as we attempt to encourage appropriate discussion on a very emotional subject – the future of our communities.’

Cymuned believe that newcomers to Welsh-speaking communities face a civic responsibility to learn and use the Welsh language in order to avoid doing irreparable damage to the future of the language and the future of rural Welsh communities.

‘The Commission and Cymuned are agreed that the challenge for both of our organisations,’ said Chris Myant, ‘is to find ways of focusing on the bigger issue: how the increasing movement of people into and out of Welsh-speaking areas of the country, the overwhelming majority of which takes place without friction or rancour, can be accompanied by a strong development of the Welsh language as a welcoming, confident aspect of the life of these communities and one which will be taken up and shared by incomers as much as by those born into Welsh speaking families.’

Those who would like to book a place in the Conference, where Richard Brunstrom, Chief Constable of North Wales Police, will also be speaking, need to contact Cymuned’s office on 01758-612712 or email cymuned@cymuned.org to ask to be placed on the guest list. For those not on the guest list, an entrance fee of £5 will be payable on the door. The Conference will start at 10.00 am and finish at 4.30 pm in the Penrhyndeudraeth Memorial Hall on Saturday the 14th of April.

For more details, contact Cymuned’s office on 01758-612712.

If the county councils of Wales fail to follow the lead shown in England, current levels of inward-migration to rural Wales could rise significantly, is the latest warning from the communities pressure group Cymuned. Cymuned launched a website which calls on the county councils of Wales to adopt policies similar to those in England which allow new residential build for local need only, Homes4Locals.com, in Caernarfon and Wrecsam last Saturday (pictures available at www.Homes4Locals.com/pictures).

‘This is the first time we have held a protest of this kind in two places at the same time,’ says Cymuned Chief Executive Aran Jones, ‘which shows how much our support is growing, particularly in the North-East. We are now looking forward to hearing from the county councils in response to our request for them to hold democratic, open votes on this matter.’

In the face of a painfully slow response from Welsh politicians, the housing crisis is continuing to worsen – this year, 17% more householders in social housing lost their homes than in 2004/5 – and Cymuned believe that the situation could reach nightmarish conditions in the course of the next decade.

‘The English countryside is being increasingly successfully defended against inappropriate speculative development,’ says Aran Jones, ‘and if the same kind of policies aren’t adopted in Wales, speculative developers will increasingly see Wales as an easy option, and the current levels of inward migration could become significantly worse.’

‘The support for this campaign at grassroots level so far has been staggering,’ says Aran Jones, ‘and it is extremely important that we now move on to see this policy getting a fair and full discussion in our county councils, with a democratic opportunity for the councillors to vote in favour of a sustainable future for all our communities.’

For more details, contact Cymuned’s office on 01758-612712.

The communities pressure group Cymuned will be launching a website which calls for new housing to be built only in answer to local need, www.Homes4Locals.com, in front of the council offices in Caernarfon and Wrecsam at 1 o’clock in the afternoon next Saturday (24/03/07). Members of the group will be wearing cardboard playhouses to emphasise how local people are unable to afford real houses.

‘We have written to every town and community council in Wales,’ says Aran Jones, Cymuned’s Chief Executive, ‘and we have received statements of support from right across the country – from Pembroke to Flint, from Ynys Môn to Monmouth. County councillors of every major political party have declared their support, and we have now written to every county council in Wales to ask them to hold a democratic vote on the matter.’

This is the first time that the group has held protests in two places at the same time, and shows the significant growth in support for Cymuned’s work in the North-East.

‘We need homes for local people,’ says Carrie Harper, from Cymuned’s Wrecsam branch, ‘and some low percentage of supposedly ‘affordable’ houses doesn’t come close to providing an answer to the current crisis. It is vital that we develop local, sustainable housing markets as is already being done in England.’

‘The support for this campaign so far has been staggering,’ says Aran Jones, ‘and it is extremely important that we now move on to see this policy getting a fair and full discussion in our county councils, with a democratic opportunity for the councillors to vote in favour of a sustainable future for all our communities.’

For more details, contact Cymuned’s office on 01758-612712.

After travelling to Italy to hand out Sing4Wales.com business cards last weekend, supporters of the Welsh songs website will be back on the streets of Cardiff this Saturday, when Wales play England. They will be distributing business cards with the words to the Welsh National Anthem on one side and Calon Lân on the other, and also giving out free postcards, in an attempt to encourage more singing during Welsh games.

Sing4Wales.com posters, business cards and postcards will also be distributed in London, where The Red Dragonhood street fashion label is taking over the Famous Three Kings pub in North End Road, next door to West Kensington tube station. “We have now sent Sing4Wales.com posters all over the world,” says Aran Jones, the website’s organiser. “Everyone who has got in touch with us has been absolutely delighted by the website, and we receive new offers of help and support every week. We are extremely pleased to see the remarkable effect this simple idea has had.”

Martin Davies, owner of The Red Dragonhood and its distributor, thereddragonhood.com, who recently caused controversy by appearing on Newsnight wearing a T-shirt that made fun of the English, wanted to promote Sing4Wales.com in London. The Red Dragonhood is supporting the Sing4Wales.com campaign by producing a DVD featuring the words to the National Anthem, which will be played on the large screens in the pub before the match.

“The Famous Three Kings is effectively the clubhouse of the Welsh in London for rugby internationals. A lot of my Welsh customers are really eager to sing,” says Richard Harvey, the landlord, “but they don’t because they’re not sure of the words. This idea is sure to create a fantastic atmosphere.”

“Sing4Wales.com and thereddragonhood.com are both raising awareness of what it is to be Welsh,” says Martin Davies, “and the positive response they’ve both received shows how proud the people of Wales are of their nation. Now we need everyone to sing loudly enough to carry Wales to victory against the old enemy on Saturday!’

For more details, contact Cymuned’s office on 01758-612712, or The Red Dragonhood’s office on 020-8202-0697.

With requests for Sing4Wales.com posters coming in from all over the world, the first wave have now been sent to Italy, America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Taiwan and Malta, not to mention England, Ireland and Scotland. Sing4Wales.com supporters will also be distributing business cards with the words to the National Anthem and Calon Lân on the streets of Rome from Friday onwards.

‘The response has been amazing,’ says Aran Jones, the website’s organiser. ‘People have got in touch from all over the world to say thank you in the warmest possible terms, telling us it was like finding treasure and has meant an enormous amount to them, and asking us to extend the range of songs on the site even further!’

Hundreds of posters and thousands of business cards have been produced, and discussions are taking place with a number of sports clubs to co-promote the website.

‘We’re talking to sports clubs who are very keen to give the business cards away for free to their supporters,’ says Aran Jones, ‘and if any other clubs would like to do the same, we’d be delighted to talk to them – all they need to do is just get in touch through the website itself.’

For more details, contact Cymuned’s office on 01758-612712.

In last week’s meeting of Pwllheli’s Town Council, an almost unanimous vote (with one member abstaining) was passed in favour of the policy suggestions on Homes4Locals.com to restrict planning permission for new residential developments to cases of local need only. Cymuned has now received letters of support from 20 of Gwynedd’s 61 town and community councils, which shows the wide support that exists for a policy which is already in operation in a number of places in England.

‘This was a very important decision by the Pwllheli Town Council,’ says Aran Jones, Cymuned’s Chief Executive, ‘and it shows clearly how eager our elected representatives at the closest level to the community are to solve the housing crisis.’

Cymuned is hoping to hold meetings with officers and members of Gwynedd Council to discuss the response that the movement has received from town and community councils in the county.

‘We are eager to show how widespread the support is for this kind of policy,’ says Aran Jones. ‘Gwynedd Council has lead the way with its affordable housing plans, and now there is strong grassroots support for them to take this important next step towards establishing a local and sustainable housing market.’

For more details, contact Cymuned’s office on 01758-612712.