Plans to transform old factory and warehouse buildings used as a ‘house of fairy tales’ into a new community hub have been given the go-ahead by planners.

Canning Town’s Goswell Bakeries and Moss Electrical warehouse site in Caxton Street North, which has been the home of the House of Fairy Tales creative charity since 2011, is to have new businesses with 336 apartments above.

It is to be transformed by a Studio Egret West scheme for Cathedral Group developers after unanimous approval by Newham Council.

The scheme has been praised as showing attention to detail with the active use of spaces at ground floor level for commercial units designed to attract growth enterprises in need of affordable space.

Caxton Street North has the potential to become a new destination in east London for “future looking” growth industries, with companies able to adapt their space to different ways of trading, say developers. They can throw open their doors on weekend mornings with the pedestrianisation of Hoy Street.

Essential for the project was the need to breathe new life into disused industrial buildings as quickly as possible.

So Cathedral Group which brought the site two years ago quickly arranged for the House of Fairy Tales to move into one of the warehouses and start work with schools in the area.

The old factories, as a result, are already hosting art exhibitions and workshops for children, to become an integral part of the new development.

Cathedral’s chief executive Richard Upton said: “Newham Council has recognised this site’s potential for something quite different for Canning Town—it’s closer to true ‘regeneration’ than simply getting rid of some tired old warehouse and factory buildings and replacing them with high-quality apartments.”

House of Fairy Tales is currently using one of the buildings in Caxton Street, acting as a magnet for other organisations.

Construction work on the new development starts next September, with the first building finished in 2016.