I WAS in Edinburgh at the weekend visiting friends and the subject on everyone’s lips was the tourist tax. A public consultation has just opened, and if the locals I spoke to have their way, the four million visitors who descend upon their overcrowded city every year will soon be paying an extra £2 per room, per night, towards things like keeping the streets clean and better toilets.

I nodded along with my Edinburgher pals as they explained why they support the levy. But in the back of my mind I couldn’t help thinking that the city most in need of the income generated by such a tax is along the M8.

Glasgow City Council’s announcement that the People’s Palace and Winter Gardens will close at the end of the year due to a £7 million repair bill has come as a severe blow. Hardly surprisingly, the council doesn’t have a spare £7m, so the inevitable petition is under way, and a legal challenge is also being mooted. But the crisis goes deeper.

To say 2018 has been a terrible year for the city centre is an understatement. We all know how catastrophic the Glasgow School of Art (GSA) fire has been, especially coming on top of the earlier fire on Sauchiehall Street that has caused ongoing damage to an already ailing part of the town.

The People’s Palace is one of the museums most cherished by Glaswegians, as well as one of the few tourist attractions in that part of the city centre. We simply cannot countenance losing it permanently, and already the inevitable recriminations are raging over which City Chambers administration is responsible. Citizens, meanwhile, are left asking the following question for the umpteenth time this year: how could this happen?

It seems to me that on this one the answer is grimly simple. A decade of austerity and frozen council tax has left the council starved of cash and Glasgow Museums, which attracts four million visitors a year yet survives on a measly £12m annual budget and receives no funding from Holyrood or Westminster, finds itself in an impossible bind.

And if it hadn’t been the People’s Palace, it would have been a crisis at one of the other museums on the roster, which includes Kelvingrove, the Burrell (itself going through a massively expensive renovation), the Riverside Museum, Scotland Street School, GoMA, Provand’s Lordship and St Mungo’s, that brought the situation to a head.

These are financially precarious times for Glasgow, and Brexit will only make things worse. Care services are struggling, nursery fees have just been hiked by 57 per cent and the council faces an eye-watering bill to right generations of unequal pay for women workers. Taxpayers are also feeling the pinch after years of austerity: this is not the time to ask them to pay more for museums.

That’s why we must look for new solutions to keep our institutions, and the civic pride they sustain, afloat. If we do not, the outlook is bleak – any one on the list could be next.

One obvious idea is charging for entry. Indeed, asking folk from wealthy neighbouring local authorities such as East Renfrewshire and East Dunbartonshire who use the facilities but pay nothing towards their upkeep, is arguably attractive.

Tourists, too, could pay, as they do already for so many museums across the world. But the practicalities of this system would inevitably require Glaswegians to pay too, and that sticks in the craw. We’re a poor city in comparison to some, but the fact that we offer all our citizens, regardless of background, the opportunity to experience world-class culture for free is too valuable a principle to give up on, even now. Especially now.

That’s why I believe we must join our cousins in Edinburgh in pushing for a tourist tax. Glasgow is not in the same league when it comes to tourism and not likely to raise the £13m a year forecast by the capital. But even half, or indeed a third of that cash would make a significant difference to the empty coffers of Glasgow Museums.

Doubtless the hospitality industry in Glasgow would object vociferously to any such suggestion, just as it has in Edinburgh. But by opposing, it would be risking irreparable damage to the cultural mix that brings folk to the city in the first place. And it’s not as if global visitors aren’t used to being asked to cough up a small amount – Amsterdam, Prague, Berlin and Paris are among the many cities that already run such a scheme. We could also consider using some of the money to clean the streets – Lord knows they need it.

This is a time for long-term strategies not short-sighted gripes. Glasgow has spent 30 years transforming itself from a post-industrial has-been into a thriving cultural powerhouse enjoyed by locals and visitors alike. But as we have seen all too clearly over the last difficult months, that progress is fragile.

Let’s waste no more time in starting discussions about the practicalities of getting this levy up and running. All our city’s museums, not just the People’s Palace, need more funding. We should be prepared to be more imaginative in how we provide it.