This has been an excellent summer for Scotland's museums.

Edinburgh’s newly refurbished National Museum of Scotland attracted half a million people in fewer than six weeks while in Glasgow, the new Riverside Museum attracted a similar number in its first six weeks. These visitor numbers are good news, but unsurprising in many ways: Scots have always valued their museums and used them in great numbers. These buildings tell our stories, but they are also unquestionably part of our lives too: popular, busy and valued.

However, like any other institutions that use public money, Scotland’s museums have been subject to the pressures of tightening resources. At the national level, both National Museums Scotland (NMS) and the National Galleries of Scotland (NGS) have navigated their way through a 4% cut to their budgets but have warned they cannot face such a cut every year without damage to what they do. Now Museums Galleries Scotland has launched a consultation process to develop a new national strategy for the sector and – with an increase in Government funding out of the question and a further decrease possible – it is an opportunity to come up with some fresh ideas for financing and supporting our museums.

One idea that has not been explicitly raised as an option, although neither has it been explicitly ruled out, is ending free admission and charging visitors. But if the strategy that emerges from this process draws a line in the sand at all, charging for entry must be it. No-one is questioning that the arts sector has to take its share of cuts, but neither must arts be allowed to become an unaffordable luxury in times of recession. Quite the opposite in fact: as this summer’s visitor numbers may well prove, when money is tight, people are more likely to use free museums, not only because they are cost-effective for people forced into so-called staycations but also because, quite simply, they lift the spirits.

And there is another, even stronger reason for maintaining free admission and that it what museums can do for our cities and our country. What the Guggenheim did for Bilbao, the Riverside Museum has the potential to do for Clydeside as does the upcoming V&A in Dundee. In other words, not only can museums be the core of regeneration, they attract visitors – visitors who spend money in the museum shop, in hotels and elsewhere.

For all of these reasons, free admission must be a sine qua non of the strategy for Scotland’s museums and galleries. This does not mean museums should not continue to charge for one-off exhibitions – indeed, some exhibitions could never be staged in Scotland without charges – and these important public institutions should also explore new ideas for raising money, including maximising public donations. Merging functions may also be on the table before long.

Charging, however, must be out of the question. Apart from anything else, we know that when some museums did charge in the 1980s, attendance numbers slumped and that is surely counter-productive. And as Museum Galleries Scotland’s consultation document says, museums exist for the public benefit and the public must never be charged to receive it.