WE ALL pay for museums, whether through national tax, council tax or door admission. But should entrance to museums be free at the point of entry, like the NHS? Is access to our cultural heritage on a par with access to personal health care?

The Conservative Government has promised not to introduce museum entry charges. Culture Minister Ed Vaizey, the Wantage MP, made the pledge during the election campaign when he said ministers were keen to help museums raise money privately, such as through legacies in peoples’ wills.

“It has been an absolute core part of our approach that the national museums should remain free in order to access the national collections,” he said.

But museums are facing a funding drop from £1.9m pounds in 2012 to £1m in 2017. So while the national museums might not charge for entry, what will happen on the local front?

Local authorities fund about 700 museums in Britain. Few charge for entry but two recently decided to introduce charges.

It now costs £7.50 per person to visit York Art Gallery and £5 to get into the Brighton Museum and Art Gallery.

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Oxford Botanic Garden

According to Alistair Brown from the Museums Association: “Given austerity and the massive funding cuts, York’s decision will most likely not be a one-off. We are keenly aware of these discussions going on behind closed doors.” He thinks many museums are experimenting with charges to stay afloat.

“Some will find it does not work well and museums may have to reduce their opening hours further and others will potentially close,” he said.

Janet Barnes, CEO of the York Art Gallery Trust, said “Charging was the only way forward for us. More and more, institutions that never thought of charging will have to. It’s a no-brainer. If people want these institutions to continue they will have to pay. Many haven’t really grasped that. Either you support them and want them, or you don’t.”

During those rainy, weekday summer mornings in the future you may not be able to take your children to the Pitt Rivers or the Oxfordshire Museum at Woodstock.

If you are from the ‘frozen north’ of the county you may have to pay to enjoy the family-friendly museum located beside the canal in the centre of Banbury.

The writer Rachel Cooke argues that charges should apply selectively on a class basis. The middle class should bear the financial burden to ensure museums are open to everybody.

She said, “While visitor numbers to many museums have increased since (charges were dropped), their profile has changed not a jot.

“They remain, in large part, middle class, educated and in work.

" I don’t see why those people…shouldn’t help to subsidise the less well off, to fund not only the concessions that must be maintained for children, pensioners and students, but also to pay the salaries of those working hard to bring in new social groups – the curators, the youth workers, the people who run educational programmes. If you like visiting galleries, and are lucky enough to be able to afford to do it on a regular basis, why not share the love?”

In the10 years since Britain’s national museums stopped charging entry fees, not many other countries have followed suit.

The French tried the experiment for six months. Some French museums offered free admission and some restricted it to certain days. But after the six months the charges came back, but with a difference.

The French model threw up the fact that most people who were attracted by free admission had been young. So now the French discriminate, not on the basis of class, but on the basis of age. Most French museums and galleries offer free admission to residents up to the age of 26.

Another way to increase the finances is a very British model. Entrance to the general collection is free, but like the Ashmolean’s special shows with big names, there is a special charge for shows like the one coming up in October: Titian to Canaletto: Drawing in Venice.

But once charges return, perhaps as a matter of survival through the back door of austerity, chances are they will not go away again if the policy at Oxford’s Botanic Garden is anything to go by.

For centuries entry was free, then about 20 years ago the Botanic Garden tried out an experiment. They would make a ‘small’ charge to support a local charity. This was introduced as a temporary measure to reach out to the local community and put something back. It turned into a nice little earner and is still in place as a permanent feature. The entry fee is now pegged at £4.95 per person, with various concessions.

Jonathan Jones, art critic for The Guardian, dares to speak the unsayable truth: museums are not the NHS – they should charge us.

He says: “Sometimes you have to think the unthinkable.

"If we want museums to prosper and thrive in a harsh economic climate with central government talking about 40 per cent cuts, an entrance fee may be the best way forward. And it may have a good side.

“In reality it is much less shocking than some other of the solutions councils have come up with to fund shortfalls. I am not upset by this proposal. What upset me was Northampton Council selling a 4,000-year-old ancient Egyptian masterpiece it was lucky enough to own. The council said it would gladly sell it again. It ought to be ashamed.

"Selling this statue – for £16m – was a betrayal of every Northamptonshire child’s education, as well as an insult to the intelligence of everyone who lives there. So wait.

"What if, instead of selling off great works of art, councils charged for admission? What harm would that do to education and public access?

"None.”