I would like to apologise for the way my letter of December 29 came across.

I agree with Councillor Sue Paskins (Letters, December 31) - it sounded arrogant to me as well when I read it in print.

It was not intended to open up the four-wheel drive gas-guzzling debate.

It was meant as a tongue-in-cheek comment about council expenditure on road gritting for the few days of the year when it is below freezing and was written just after I had been pebble-dashed while cycling.

It would be nice if there could be some council expenditure to repair pavements in the suburbs such as Woodingdean that are used 365 days of the year.

Anyway, back to four-wheel drives: Most run on diesel, which is a refined waste product from petroleum production.

Diesel engines were invented by a Frenchman and designed to run on a wide range of fuels - the first fuel used was peanut oil and they are well suited to non-fossil fuels such as corn oil, sunflower oil and rape seed oil.

However, when the Americans realised what the diesel engine could do they decided to name the dirty by-product from petrol production "diesel" and flog this as a fuel.

The way forward for reducing many of our environmental problems is for the government to encourage the use of non-fossil fuels by significantly reducing the duty payable on them.

At present the cost of biofuels is often higher than that of diesel and petrol, mainly because of the high level of duty.

It seems the Government has no real intention of promoting cleaner fuels as the income from fossil fuel tax is so high.

Maybe people should consider what the Government is doing to our children's future.

-Peter Millis, Brighton