First there was Watergate, now there is paper-thin-wall-gate.

Offices at Brighton and Hove City Council's headquarters are set to be rearranged amid concerns rival politicians can eavesdrop through walls on each other's confidential conversations.

Gill Mitchell, leader of the opposition Labour group, has been told she will be moved from her current room next door to the council's Conservative leader Mary Mears.

Labour's administrative assistant will also be shunted from an office adjacent to Tory deputy leader Ayas Fallon-Khan, as part of a wider rearrangement of King's House, in Grand Avenue, Hove.

The council said the project was being carried out to make better use of office space and there was no suggestion of any wrong-doing.

It refused to confirm or deny rumours that councillor Mears' office and surrounding corridors had also been checked for bugging devices amid security concerns.

A council spokesman said: "We have a range of security measures in place in council buildings and for obvious reasons we do not comment on them."

Councillors yesterday said King's House had notoriously thin walls which had made working conditions difficult for some time.

Liberal Democrat group leader Paul Elgood said: "The walls are very thin. I had Gill's office before and you could hear every word spoken in the next office. You could hear normal conversations, let alone heated ones. It was actually quite annoying a lot of the time."