Sign up to our free newsletter for the top North Wales stories sent straight to your e-mail Sign up now! Thank you for subscribing See our privacy notice Invalid Email

Conwy council is to bring in another language czar to try to halt the decline in the number of people speaking the language.

Welsh is spoken by 24.7% of the county's residents, according to the 2011 census. That figure was down from 30.6% in 1991.

Members of the cabinet will be told that, in order to halt the decline and grow the language in line with the Welsh Government’s goal of having one million Welsh speakers by 2050, another Welsh Language Officer is needed in Conwy county .

The expected cost of the new hire is set to be in the region of £40,000.

A report to members of the cabinet said: “We must emphasise that implementing this strategy is totally dependent on additional finance to finance an additional Welsh Language Officer.

“Without this additional resource, it won’t be possible to realise nor develop many of the aspirations in this strategy.

“Although the Welsh Language and Translation Services Manager is responsible for implementing the Welsh language standards, by now she also has many other duties, which include managing 29 members of staff and the work of providing a comprehensive translation service to Conwy, Denbighshire, Wrexham and Flintshire councils, Cartrefi Conwy and the Welsh Local Government Association, as well as other duties in relation to the Welsh language standards in general.

“The work of developing this strategy to its full potential is a full-time post. Therefore, we ask for members’ support to finance this additional officer, who would be responsible for developing this strategy further in order to see the Welsh language thrive even more in Conwy.”

Welsh language campaign group Cymdeithas yr Iaith said more needed to be done for the county to help hit the 2050 target.

Tamsin Davies from the group said: “Although we welcome this step from Conwy council as a sign of their intention to do more for the language, we need a much bigger change from local councils in order to meet the national target of a million Welsh speakers.

“For example, we need a significant increase in Welsh-medium education, and Conwy’s contribution will be vital.

“In 2014, only 25.1% of children in the county were in Welsh-medium education.

“Our research shows that, for Conwy to make their contribution to the million speakers target, they need to increase that to 47.9% by 2025 as a first step. This requires substantial investment and urgent action.”

Cabinet members will discuss whether to approve the aspiration to hire another officer at their meeting in Bodlondeb on Tuesday.