Historical Welsh place names legal protection call

Changes to historical place names in Wales should be banned by law, the Welsh language commissioner has said.

Meri Huws said certain names should be recorded and then placed on a "statutory register".

It follows a row where the Grade I-listed Plas Glynllifon near Caernarfon was referred to as Wynnborn mansion in online marketing material.

Deputy Culture Minister Ken Skates said legal protection for names would be "very difficult to deliver".

History 'critical'

Ms Huws told the BBC's Sunday Politics Wales programme that the Historic Environment Bill progressing through the assembly provided "a real opportunity for us to protect names through a statutory register and that is done in other places in the world".

"We have Welsh place names in Wales, we've got English place names, we've got Scandinavian place names, we've also got Irish and Flemish place names," she said.

"But it all reflects our history, and that history is critical to us as a people."

Mr Skates has offered an amendment to allow names of historical interest to be added to local records.

But Ms Huws added: "If we are going to record, it's a very small step then to place a protection on that name."

"You'd have to consider how we would protect it, but we do that with buildings - why not do it with place names?"

A Ceredigion farm promotes its accommodation under a different name

Mr Skates told the programme giving names statutory protection "would require considerable bureaucracy and administration".

"I wouldn't entirely shut the door on the possibility of statutory protection," he said.

"But, as it's being presented so far, it would probably not be workable, or enforceable either," he said.

Sunday Politics Wales is on BBC One Wales on Sunday, 1 November at 11:00 GMT.