The founder of Llais Gwynedd hopes the party will have seven seats in Gwynedd when the votes are counted on Friday.

Owain Williams is the founder of Llais Gwynedd and like many of the original members who were first elected in 2008, he is not standing this year. The party was originally founded in order to oppose Gwynedd Council's plan to close smaller schools throughout the county. 

In fact, no-one stands in the name of Llais Gwynedd because Covid interfered with the registration process, he told our sister title, Corgi Cymru.

"But the party will be registered after the election and hopefully the Llais Gwynedd group will be in - there are already two," he said, referring to two seats where two councillors went unopposed.

"We have 11 people standing in total," he said adding that one of them, 25-year-old Lois Fychan, is also his daughter-in-law. She is standing in the new ward, Yr Eifl, against Plaid Cymru's Jina Gwyrfai and Cian Ireland on behalf of Welsh Labour.

At the local elections in 2008, 12 county councillors were elected. Some of Plaid Cymru's leading members lost their seats, including Dafydd Iwan and the then leader of Gwynedd Council, Richard Parry Huws.

Over the years, some of the original members have left Llais Gwynedd and joined Plaid Cymru. In 2015, Simon Glyn, his daughter Gwenno Glyn, and his friend Gruffydd Williams, son of Owain Williams, moved across to Plaid Cymru. Gruffydd Williams is the only one out of the three standing this year and is unopposed in Nefyn.

Another person who left Llais Gwynedd to join Plaid Cymru was Peter Read. But he wasn't happy there either, he said.

"I worked with Llais for over ten years and I wanted to go independent but Plaid Cymru approached me and offered me all sorts of (responsibilities). But I was there a minute until I (realized) I was in the wrong place and I left,” he said.

Mr Read spent some time as an independent adviser: "And stupidly I went to Neil (McEvoy), but Propel doesn’t mean anything to people around here, and I didn't agree with everything they were doing.”

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Peter Read had hoped to return to Llais Gwynedd but he says he did not feel welcome, this time he is standing as an independent candidate.

"Canvassing is going excellently - nobody has thrown a bucket of water over me and every one of the houses I've gone to has made me feel welcome," he said.

Peter Read stands in Abererch ward against Mici Plwm from Plaid Cymru and Richard Glyn Roberts who is an independent.

Owain Williams said that Llais Gwynedd will focus on supporting small businesses this time around.

"There's no point shouting about saving the Welsh language without there being work for people here," he said.