Bannau Brycheiniog: Campaign to reinstate Brecon Beacons park name - BBC News
More than 50 businesses in the national park want the official name to be in English and in Welsh.
The campaign group says the bilingual tradition must be protected and respected

More than 50 businesses in the Bannau Brycheiniog national park have called for its English name to be reinstated.

They have formed a campaign group and said they were considering legal action.

The group argued businesses have spent decades making the area a "well-known global hotspot for tourism".

The park authority, which said it would stop using the Brecon Beacons name last month, said people were "welcome to use whichever name they choose".

This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Brecon Beacons National Park will now be calling itself only by its Welsh name, Bannau Brycheiniog

The decision was aimed at promoting local culture and heritage, as part of a wider overhaul of how the park is managed.

The new campaign group - called "Our Bannau Brycheiniog/Brecon Beacons" - is made up of range of businesses in the fields of tourism, farming, green energy, hospitality and retail.

Helen Howarth says losing the English language name will hurt tourism

They said they were proud of operating in a bilingual nation and believed "this tradition must be protected and respected".

They said they were also seeking legal advice about whether they could mount a High Court challenge, which would argue the park's rebrand conflicts with the 1993 Welsh Language Act obliging public bodies in Wales to treat Welsh and English on an equal basis.

"I firmly believe that losing our identity as the Brecon Beacons National Park will be detrimental to us all and especially tourism, hospitality and trade," said Helen Howarth, who owns a self-catering accommodation business.

The group has penned an open letter to park bosses calling on them "to reinstate the bilingual Bannau Brycheiniog/ Brecon Beacons National Park name and brand".

They say a number of the campaign's signatories are part of a scheme to be official ambassadors for the park and were "not even notified about the renaming and rebranding project before its launch on 17 April".

Nigel Kilgallon says the name change seems like "an act of sabotage"

Nigel Kilgallon, who runs a B&B in Brecon and is a town councillor, said the name change highlights the disconnect between the authority that runs the national park, and the local community.

"You could call it a trademark, you could call it intellectual property, you could call it a marketing tool. All these things that it could be. But it's also the home of the people that live here. Our Brecon Beacons," he said.

"And so to just change it, just seems like an act of sabotage. It's either that or it's just ill-thought out by the authority.

"It's what it's always known as and that bilingualism is really at the heart of what we're trying to do here."

Owen Williams, the managing director of a digital marketing agency, said he found it difficult to understand the campaigners' argument.

The attention the national park had received through its decision in recent weeks had been "unreal", he claimed.

"It's been a very canny marketing strategy," he said.

Referring to moves in other countries such as Australia to focus on the indigenous names for iconic sites he said "tourism doesn't drop because the Ayres Rock name is minimised and Uluru brought to the fore".

A spokeswoman for Bannau Brycheiniog National Park Authority said the organisation had "decided to prioritise the Welsh name going forwards".She added: "The park is not asking other people or organisations to prioritise the Welsh name. This is an organisational decision and applies to all the work they do.

"Others are welcome to use whichever name they choose for the park."