A former Hilton hotel is set to be used as a temporary court after a council building was found to have crumbling concrete.

Now opened as the Orida Hotel in Maidstone, part of the 146-room site will be used to home the Medway County and Family court.

It was thought the Bearsted Road building may have been used as a Nightingale Court when the Maidstone Mercure Hotel near Hollingbourne shuts later this month.

But the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) has told KentOnline it will instead be used as a “temporary capacity court” Gun Wharf building in Chatham is closed due to reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) problems.

It means criminal court cases which were being heard at the Mercure hotel will return to the Crown Court in Barker Road and there will now be four courts for family and county court cases.

The Nightingale court will be closing this month. Previously, an MOJ spokesman said: “It will close as planned in March 2024 when cases will return to being heard within our permanent Crown Court estate.

“More criminal cases are being heard before the Crown Courts than at any point over the last two years. We are focused on ensuring the courts - including magistrates’ courts where 90% of criminal cases are heard – continue to deliver justice for victims.”

The RAAC problem at Medway Council’s HQ could see them borrow a whopping £20 million to make the building fit for use for the next 40 years.

The local authority will have to borrow the huge investment to fix Gun Wharf, council papers say.

A report discussed at a cabinet meeting in February provided options to members about what to do with the authority’s HQ which has been largely closed due to RAAC being discovered.

The concrete became national news in September last year when schools across the country were closed because of fears that buildings might be unsafe.

Parts of Gun Wharf were found to have RAAC in October, leaving it with limited available space, forcing many council staff to work remotely.

Recent figures from the MOJ have showed there is a huge backlog of civil court cases which has resulted in some claims taking years to be heard with people in Kent “enduring the very worst delays”.

Some claimants in the county have faced huge waits of nearly three years for a resolution to their issue, new statistics show.

At Medway County Court, which moved to Medway Council's headquarters at Gun Wharf, Chatham in 2022, the average wait was two years and 11 months for trials to take place in cases not classed as small claims.

According to the figures, county court claims from October to December 2023 were up 11% to 402,000 nationally.The mean time taken for small claims and multi/fast track claims to go to trial was 12 months and a year and seven months respectively.