TWO Keighley-based teachers have set up a new business where teams of people work together to escape a locked room.

Huma Israil, 30, and her sister-in-law Nighat Israil, 36, have teamed up to create Locked In Games, a live escape, beat-the-clock-type challenge, where groups of between two and five people are locked in a room by the games master.

The group then has 60 minutes to solve a series of puzzles and problem exercises to get a code so they can unlock the room’s door before the deadline.

Locked In Games, based at Byron Street Mills in Leeds, opened its doors in October.

It features two rooms, one called ‘nursery nightmare’, billed as a creepy children’s nursery, and the other is the ‘classroom of doom’, an eerie old-fashioned classroom.

Huma, who was born and still lives in Keighley, says she got the idea for the business after seeing a similar attraction during a visit to London.

She currently works part-time as a business studies teacher in Huddersfield, and has previously worked on the same subject at Dixons City Academy in Bradford.

Nighat, who also lives in Keighley, juggles the business with her role as a teacher at Crossley Hall Primary School in Bradford.

Huma said: “It’s going really well, we are busy.

“The weekends are a busy time and the lead-up to Christmas is looking good too. We’ve had lots of families and businesses doing it as team-building.”

She added: “At first, people come in and don’t know what to expect. They think what on earth are we talking about.

“It’s an up-and-coming concept. There are quite a few businesses like this.

“The aim at the moment is to just get these two rooms fully up and running. We’d like to expand to have more rooms. We’d like to create rooms where people need to use their mental and physical skills. At the moment, it’s just mental skills that are needed.

“If it works, we’d like to branch out to different places. It is good for teamwork. It only works if you work as a team.

“I thought this type of business did not seem to exist up north.”

The experience varies in price, depending on how many people take part. It costs a combined £32 for two people and £65 for a group of five.

Locked In Games is open every day between 10am and 9pm. It is open to anyone aged nine or over. Visit lockedingames.co.uk for more details.

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