WORK can start next month on a £1.2m pub development in Darlington after magistrates gave the scheme their approval.

The JD Wetherspoon pub chain will undertake a major redevelopment of buildings in Crown Street to form a Lloyds No 1 bar, which is scheduled to open at the beginning of March next year.

Named The Printworks, the pub will involve the conversion of a former supermarket and warehouse which back on to the Cornmill Shopping Centre and have been unoccupied for two years.

An adjacent former furnishing shop will remain on the market and is not included in the scheme.

The new pub will be named after the former Dressers works which occupied the building and was the printing arm of the Dressers stationery business, which traded in the town's High Row for more than 100 years.

In the 1890s, the firm moved its presses to Crown Street. The business was sold to the owners of The Northern Echo in the 1920s and printing continued there until 1963.

The new pub will create 35 full and part-time jobs.

It will be Wetherspoon's second pub in the town. The other is The Tanners Hall, in Skinnergate.

But unlike The Tanners Hall, the Lloyds bar will play music throughout the day and show music videos on plasma screens.

About a third of the building will be designated as non-smoking.

Wednesday's decision by South Durham magistrates, sitting in Darlington, follows planning approval by Darlington Borough Council.

Although the redevelopment will not involve demolishing the building, a spokesman for the chain said it would look totally different.

The Printworks will be wheelchair-accessible and have lavatories for disabled customers.

Wetherspoon managing director John Hutson said: "We are delighted to have been granted a licence to open a new outlet in Darlington."

The buildings were bought lastyear by the Rachel Charitable Trust, owner of the Cornmill Centre.

The trust is also preparing to develop the car park opposite the new pub, adding an extra tier of parking spaces.