People in Wrexham 'more likely to speak Portugese or Polish than Welsh'

Council community leader says Welsh is now only the fourth most popular language in North Wales' largest town

File photo (Getty Images)

People living in the biggest town in North Wales are more likely to speak Portuguese or Polish than Welsh, it has been claimed.

The statistic emerged during a debate at Wrexham council, which decided to appeal against a move to impose 171 “standards” for promoting the Welsh language. Hugh Jones, the council’s lead member for communities, said Welsh was now only the fourth most popular language in Wrexham after English, Polish and Portuguese.

But he said the council was “fully supportive” of Welsh, despite councillors voting to try to get out of 10 of 171 standards set by the Welsh Language Commissioner Meri Huws.

He said the council had provided more than 3,000 hours of Welsh language training to staff during the past 12 months, but there had been difficulties in recruiting Welsh speakers.

It is claimed there have been complaints that the voice recognition system on a council hotline was struggling to recognise some Welsh accents.

The council’s Welsh language officer will now launch an appeal over the standards.