LEADER WELCOMES REASSURANCE OVER S4C MOVE

Carmarthenshire’s Leader has welcomed the reassurance from S4C that the planned move to Carmarthen will still go ahead.

Concerns about future funding for the organisation were raised at Council recently following the announcement that the BBC would have to cover the cost of free licences for people over the age of 75 from 2018.

It is estimated that the move could cost the BBC up to £650million annually and in its endeavour to make savings, the Corporation may reduce the level of funding for S4C.

County Council Leader Cllr Emlyn Dole said he expected S4C to face cuts of around 10 per cent of its annual budget.

He wrote to Chair of the S4C Authority Huw Jones to seek reassurance that the future relocation of their headquarters from Cardiff to Carmarthen would not be jeopardised by any efficiency savings.

Mr Jones has now issued a statement saying: “The motives behind the decision are solid ones – to bring linguistic, economic and cultural benefits for the area as well as benefits for the service S4C provides.

“It is true that we currently face uncertainty regarding what will be the level of S4C’s future funding and we look forward to early discussions with the UK Government in relation to that.

“But from the outset, it was a key condition of our plans to relocate our headquarters that this would be cost neutral to S4C over the project period, and this challenging new context underlines the importance of that.”

Cllr Dole said: “I wholeheartedly welcome this statement which gives us the reassurance we seek that the S4C move to Carmarthen will be unaffected by the budget cuts the organisation faces.

“As I have said previously, I cannot overemphasise how important it is for us as a county that the new headquarters moves to Carmarthen.

“This is very welcome news, we look forward to working with them in the future.”