When reading the item published in the Yorkshire In Brief section in The Press on January 14, under the heading "Sweet way to beat ice", I was reminded of something my late brother Mark told me back in the 1950s.

He had been working as a bricklayer at a sugar beet factory, repairing beet storage hoppers.

He knew what he was talking about when it came to building technology - he went on to be a structural concrete design engineer at one point in his extensive career in the construction industry. He told me about the hoppers constantly having to be repaired because the concrete which was used to construct them was continually being "eaten" away by the beet sugar.

I expect, with York's history in the sugar beet industry, there will be many in the city who will have had experience of this.

However, returning to the point of my letter, it strikes me that it may prove to be a foolhardy and costly mistake to use a by-product of sugar on the roads in the manner described in your article.

I'm no chemist and for all I know maybe the detrimental effects of the sugar are cancelled out by the salt or the processing of the sugar. Perhaps there isn't any sugar in molasses. I do hope so, otherwise what appears to be a sweet solution to the problem of de-icing our roads could turn into a sticky problem for concrete kerbs and their foundations.

Some road carriageways, some drains and their haunching and surrounds, drainage and electrical chambers are concrete. I guess they know what they are doing - or do they?

William L Robbins, Derwent Drive, Wheldrake, York.