A £1 million bar development will transform a historic building in Brighton and create up to 35 jobs.

Pub retailer Eldridge Pope is to open The Toad at the Picture House, in the former ABC cinema in East Street, Brighton, on Friday November 23.

The company says its venues are "designed as upmarket chameleon bars providing the very best for lunch, liquid and living."

It is just one part of a major redevelopment of the building, which was built in 1929 following the demolition of Brill's Baths, once a bustling meeting point for ladies and gentlemen.

The building went on to house the Savoy Cinema and later the Cannon.

The conversion plans include keeping the former cinema's cash desk area in the foyer.

Clive Smith of Eldridge Pope said: "It is very much an all-day trading bar which caters for just about everyone from shoppers in the morning, with the serving of coffee and food, to business lunches and later afternoon shoppers to a perhaps younger crowd in the evenings."

Neighbouring residents and businesses feared the size of the pub would cause an increase in late-night noise and disturbance but they were overruled by licensing magistrates.

The Toad will have room for up to 600 customers plus a dance floor and a DJ four nights a week.

The company also wants a public entertainment licence allowing the pub to open until midnight.

The pub will be on the ground floor. Other plans for the rest of the building include a restaurant and a casino, run by other companies.

Planning permission has already been given for a first-floor casino.

Mr Smith said the Toad would not attract the kind of crowd to get involved in drunken and disorderly behaviour.