Homeless people are being turfed out of Rhyl seafront hotels by the council in case they give a bad impression of the town to holidaymakers.

County leaders fear that people who are staying in the guesthouses and B&Bs could put tourists off and take the shine off all the regeneration the town has seen, like the new SC2 leisure centre.

But the council has not yet said where it intends to put the people it moves out, and some homeless people staying in hotels at the moment said they hadn’t been told, and that the authority’s own homelessness officers hadn’t been able to tell them.

Denbighshire council’s plans came to light when the Westminster Hotel wrote to the 26 families currently housed there to tell them that they “will notice that the council will be slowly moving everyone out of here”.

The letter added: “This is not directed by us, this is a council decision not to put temporary accommodation guests on the seafront anymore.”

When the council was challenged about what it was doing, the cabinet member responsible for homeless people said having them staying in seafront hotels could have a negative impact on tourism.

Cllr Bobby Feeley said regeneration schemes in the area could also be hit by having homeless families living in local hotels.

Cllr Feeley said: “The provision is in Rhyl and has often centred on hotels and B&Bs with a potential negative impact on the tourist and regeneration programmes for the town.

“We all know how much money we have been spending on regeneration in Rhyl.”

58 homeless families out of 100 in emergency and temporary accommodation are being housed in Rhyl at the moment.

Cllr Feeley added: “In January, two of the seafront hotels were heavily occupied by homeless households, potentially in contradiction with their planning consent.

“Community support services are working closely with planning and public protection to explore and develop alternative accommodation, including developing provision in other parts of Denbighshire in order to avoid moving families away from their communities, schools and work.

“In order to facilitate this, community support services are aiming to have provided alternative provision for households living in one of the hotels by the end of March.”

Cllr Feeley also raised concerns that hotels could be in breach of their original planning permissions by being used by the council to house homeless people.

“Obviously, a hotel that is full of homeless people is going to be going against the provisions of the planning application,” she said.

“So we’ve got to try and stop that from happening.”

Cllr Glenn Swingler warned that there would be problems finding alternative housing for the residents of the hotels.

He said: “The homeless prevention team have got the job from hell at the moment.

“They are frantically trying to find places for the people we are emptying out of the Westminster. There are still 26 families in there. We’re now having to place emergency housing out of county.

“What’s going to happen if we’re not careful is that we will place our people out of county and then, as Flintshire and Conwy and other counties have issues building up, they will place people in Denbighshire. We’ve got to be careful of that.”

Katie Bowness, 28, a mother of one, was moved by Denbighshire’s homeless services to the Westminster Hotel in the New Year.

She said the council seemed to have no sympathy for the plight of homeless people, adding: “There are real people in this accommodation and many other places that need help but we are a number on a piece of paper.

“The way the homeless are tarnished with the same brush and how they are perceived is awful.

“They need to re evaluate policies and the way things are run here in Denbighshire.”

Denbighshire council has been approached for a response as to what it intends to do with the homeless people it moves out of the hotels.