It's enough to drive you to drink.

Temperance Hall - former home to Keighley's teetotallers group - is set to become a pub.

JD Wetherspoon, which has more than 600 pubs nationally, is negotiating to buy the historic town-centre building.

Its £1 million scheme would create around 30 full and part-time jobs.

A spokesman for the company - which has been searching for some time for a suitable site in Keighley - said: "Things are still at an early stage, but we are in negotiations to purchase the building. The next stage would be to submit a planning application and to apply for a licence.

"It is an excellent location and we are very keen to open there.

''The scheme would bring back into use a site which has stood empty for a considerable while.''

He added: "The pub would be music-free, and there would be a range of cask-conditioned beers and a full menu. The building would be wheelchair-accessible, and about one third of the customer area would be designated non-smoking."

The Temperance Society, an organisation in which people pledged to be teetotal, was first established in 1832. A society was set up in Keighley in 1835 and in 1841 a public meeting, attended by 700 people, was held with the aim of getting support to fund a building.

The Temperance Hall in Keighley was eventually constructed in 1896 and opened in November of that year. It cost £10,000.

During the Second World War troops of the Duke of Wellington's Regiment were billeted in the hall.

The site - at the junction of North Street and Albert Street - was bought by the Wakefield-based Walker group in 1982 for £100,000 and was converted into a bingo hall.

It was closed down in 2000 and put on the market in May of that year for £250,000.