CITY leaders will meet with the Scottish Government’s economic secretary next week to push for support for struggling Glasgow Life – which is facing a shortfall of around £25million.

Glasgow City Council’s cultural and sporting arm, which runs community venues, had its income cut when lockdown was imposed in March.

Council leader Susan Aitken and David McDonald, depute leader and chairman of Glasgow Life, wrote to Scottish ministers in July asking for support.

Some museums, gyms and libraries have been able to reopen over the past month, but more than 100 remain closed.

Mr McDonald told councillors £6m has been secured in “one-off Covid-19 monies” from a range of sources and the organisation is expecting income for the remainder of the year to reach £4.5m.

But a financial blackhole of around £25m remains and talks about “bridging the funding gap” are ongoing with both the UK and Scottish Governments.

Mr McDonald and Ms Aitken will meet with Fiona Hyslop, the Scottish Government’s cabinet secretary for the economy, fair work and culture, next week.

“Hopefully, we will be able to update members further with some more good news,” the Glasgow Life chairman added.

But he said the forecasted income “doesn’t take into account any of the considerable additional costs of operating in a post Covid environment”.

The UK Government announced a scheme to cover lost income for local authorities but “indicated they may not cover lost income suffered by arms-length external organisations (ALEOs)”, a recent council report revealed.

It stated the Scottish Government has confirmed these consequentials will be passed on and “will consider a scheme which does recognise ALEOs”, such as Glasgow Life.

A spokesman for the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) confirmed the Scottish Government is looking at a loss of income scheme.

“In order to inform this, COSLA has submitted comprehensive lost income information to them from all local authorities,” he said.

“This includes the situation in relation to lost income for ALEOs which council leaders were clear they wanted included.”

Scottish Greens’ culture spokesman, Councillor Jon Molyneux, said: “We need the Scottish Government to urgently step up with support.”

He asked Mr McDonald when there would be a more detailed plan for the reopening of closed venues.

“We know it’s not as simple as just throwing open the doors, but people want to see a plan,” he said. “The longer the SNP has no plan, the more concerned communities will be.”

Mr McDonald said: “The impact of Covid-19 means we are highly unlikely to return to anything like our normal service level provision any time in the near future.”

But he added work was under way to safely reopen some more facilities, including football pitches, and said planning is under way for other venues.