At least three other councils should follow the lead of Gwynedd in using Welsh as their official language of administration.

That’s the view of a pressure group who used last week’s National Eisteddfod to state their aim of the language being given more prominence within town halls from Monmouthshire to Anglesey.

Dyfodol i’r Iaith are calling for at least three other authorities, namely Anglesey, Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion, to use more Welsh within the corridors of power – a move they believe would “place real economic worth” in the language.

However, they are also calling on other authorities where the language is not as strong, to promote Welsh as a working language and emphasise it as a valuable skill.

The leader of Gwynedd Council, speaking during a discussion on the National Eisteddfod Maes on Wednesday, said that Gwynedd was “leading the way” in its use of Welsh  – which is already the main internal language.

Cllr Dyfrig Siencyn added that he and his fellow councillors were in a “fortunate position”, having inherited a strong Welsh ethos from the old Gwynedd Council which existed before the last local government reorganisation in 1996.

“We started with somewhat of a clean slate, but back then the translators were churning approximately 80 per cent of material from English to Welsh, whereas now they are having to translate almost no documents at all into Welsh as the officers are using the language almost exclusively,” said Cllr Siencyn.

“That goes to show how the internal administration has been normalised. It’s almost unheard of for an officer to publish an internal report in English.”

He added that, while some members of staff were lacking in confidence in regards to their Welsh language abilities, they were offered training to improve their oral and written skills.

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