Historic field names must be protected
OVER the past 14 months I have, along with 1,266 other volunteers, contributed to the Cynefin Project organised by the National Library of Wales, in Aberystwyth.
This project is designed to repair and digitise more than 1,200 tithe maps and transcribe more than 28,000 index documents.Wales has a wealth of place names and field names each with its own distinguished identity, background and story. S4C has also televised several invaluable programmes on historic field names.
To lose such a heritage would be a travesty and an unforgivable legacy of our generation. We must protect this heritage at all costs. We have a moral obligation and indeed, a legal duty to protect it. I am disappointed that the Welsh Government (particularly the Welsh Labour Party) did not support and voted against Dai Lloyd’s Motion
(Motion under Standing Order 26.91 seeking the Assembly’s agreement to introduce a Member Bill on the Protection of Historic Place Names (Wales) Bill) on March 15, 2017.
This was an opportunity lost and regrettably not thoroughly examined. Views and opinions need to be engaged in an informed way, rather than by an exchange of uninformed opinions. If our own Welsh Government cannot support such a motion, then who will?
The government seems to object to formal protection based on the cost and administration and is relying on the statutory duty (as pronounced by the Historic Environment (Wales) Act 2016) to “list” historical place names in order for people to be made aware of them so that they may be informed of the historic value and background and to provide guidance.
This, however, lacks any status and any true grit. Such a list will be consigned to those dusty bookshelves or computer archives in Cardiff Bay.
The minister also indicated that such statutory protection will not be controllable or feasible. Guidance alone in this context is meaningless and ambiguous.
Even the EU has a “protected” food name scheme which highlights regional and traditional foods under authenticity and origin,which is guaranteed. Here in Ceredigion, the “West Wales Coracle caught salmon” is protected under Council Reg No (EC) 510 /2006!
As an analogy the Human Transplantation Wales Act (2013) provides for a “deemed consent’ for organ donation. If this principle is applied to place names, that statutory protection is deemed to be protected for all existing and current historic place names, farms, smallholdings, and field names. Such an implied scheme would reduce considerable administrative cost and possibly eliminate it from the equation.
Any change from a protected statutory name could be made to the change of ownership on the transfer form with the Land Registry subject to an Assembly consent committee. This would be a practical and a cost-effective scheme.
An implied statutory protection scheme would place the onus or the burden of change on the freeholder, leaseholder or developer, as the case may be, instead of on any local authority or government department.
The Land Registry has registered most places in Wales, but has to date ignored field names. This can easily be resolved by replicating and adjusting the tithe maps on current Land Registry maps which the Cynefin project is now preparing. I note there was no mention of a possible Land Registry role in the recent debate!
Our Welsh Government and socalled “Welsh” Labour Party need to take stock and protect our interests. Such failures will only reduce the status of Wales in the long term, and especially so if Scotland and Northern Ireland leave the Union, where Wales will be viewed as merely an appendage to the west (of England). Eirian J Williams Llandysul