The company has signed an agreement to lease the former Yorkshire Water premises on Harlow Moor Road.

Straytown plans to use these premises to provide a range of services to local musicians and schools, including rehearsal rooms, music academy and teaching studios, equipment storage and demonstration facilities for an internet based business.

"This is the perfect location," says head of Straytown, Laurie Hopkins. "We need to expand, and have already opened a second studio at our Cornwall Road premises for mixing and recording digital music. This new facility will have a separate identity to allow us to develop the rehearsal side of our business which is currently in constant demand, and to add new services such as teaching rooms for use by local schools and music teachers."

The site, which will be known as Bash Studios, has already welcomed its first pupil, drummer Matthew Symonds, whose lessons have moved to the site with teacher Rhys Phillips.

Bash Studios will be managed by Hopkins' business partner, Jason Odle.
"We plan to have three rehearsal rooms, a music technology teaching lab, two drum teaching rooms, a lecture room and teaching rooms for other instruments," explains Odle.

"We're talking to a number of instrument teachers and music schools, and to North Yorkshire County Council about how they can use the facility. There is so much space here that the options are almost unlimited."