GWYNEDD Council's cabinet has committed to investing more than £200,000 in the work of Hunaniaith - the county's menter iaith.

This cash boost will enable the initiative to appoint a chief officer for a period of four years with the expectation that they intensify the work of attracting additional investment with the aim of strengthening Hunaniaith staff’s presence in local communities.

Whilst it has been agreed that Hunaniaith should remain a unit within the council for the time being, work will be progressed for it to become an independent entity in the future.

Cllr Nia Jeffreys, Gwynedd Council's cabinet member for corporate support with responsibility for the Welsh language, said: "Over the years, Gwynedd's innovative language policies and strategies have protected our Welsh-speaking communities and led the way nationally.

"We want to see this work continue, and to ensure that Welsh is a truly community language in areas across Gwynedd.

"Hunaniaith has an important role to play in this work and I am delighted that as a cabinet, we have committed £203,880 to accelerate and intensify this work.

"We will shortly appoint a chief officer for the initiative which will enhance this important community link, as well as working on attracting additional external funding to support the work of promoting the Welsh language in Gwynedd.

"This is the start of an exciting new era for Welsh as a community language in Gwynedd. Our aim in the future will be to see Hunaniaith as a powerful independent entity that has close relationships with communities across the county.”

This new investment has also been welcomed by Dafydd Iwan, chairman of the Hunaniaith strategic group.

He said: "Everyone wants to see Hunaniaith continue to make a positive contribution to the Welsh language in communities across Gwynedd.

"The decision of the Council's cabinet is the culmination of over a year of work to identify how best to enable Hunaniaith to unleash the limitless potential of the Welsh language in Gwynedd.

"With new funding in place, it will be able to move to the next phase which will intensify the support available to promote and increase the use of Welsh in every corner of the county, and in particular so in the areas where there has been linguistic decline.”

Gwynedd Council has a long history of promoting and protecting the language and the Welsh language is given prominence in the council's strategic plans.

This additional investment is linked to the council’s language strategy - Welsh Language Promotion Plan for Gwynedd 2018-2023 and addresses priority area 4 - the language of the community.