2. Business Statement and Announcement

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:29 pm on 3 July 2018.

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Photo of David Lloyd David Lloyd Plaid Cymru 2:29, 3 July 2018

(Translated)

Leader of the house, as you know, under the Historic Environment (Wales) Act 2016,

'The Welsh Ministers must compile and maintain a list of historic place names in Wales.'

Now, the purpose of this list is to provide access to one central source of historic names in Wales, to raise awareness of the value of historic place names, and to support those who make decisions about names of houses, lakes, mountains, and so on. Now, there is no legal status for the names on this list, of course, even though I tried to ensure that last year, but I lost the vote on having an Act to safeguard historic place names in Wales. Now, recently, we’ve heard about new housing developments such as Regency Park in the Llanilltern area, to the north of Cardiff. The development is close to a sixth century monastery, established by St Illtud, but the developer has chosen an inappropriate name for the development, which has no historic connection to the area at all. There are similar examples of losing historic place names across Wales, and so, as the Act has now been adopted for some time now, will the Minister for culture bring a statement forward to this Chamber, looking at the effectiveness of the register and the work that is being done to promote it? This would also be an opportunity for us all to discuss whether there are other ways in which we can safeguard our heritage and language.