A Conservative councillor has been criticised after she urged a local authority to pull down tents housing homeless people.

Kathryn Kelloway, a councillor for the Cyncoed area of Cardiff, tweeted to the city council’s leader, Huw Thomas, with a picture of herself standing in front of tents pitched on a shopping street.

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“Cllr Thomas, if you seek safety in our city centre, if you seek prosperity for local businesses, if you seek a better image for Cardiff, Cllr Thomas come to Queen Street,” she wrote. “Cllr Thomas, tear down these tents.”

The message had received more than 1,500 comments by Friday morning, with Thomas replying that it had been an “awfully judged tweet”.

“Of course no one wants tents in our city centre, but we have to act sensitively, and support people into accommodation with help for their underlying needs,” he said. “Small wonder homelessness is soaring under this Tory Gov, if ‘tearing down tents’ is their mindset.”

Kathryn Kelloway (@kathkelloway) Cllr Thomas, if you seek safety in our city centre, if you seek prosperity for local businesses, if you seek a better image for Cardiff. Cllr Thomas come to Queen Street. Cllr Thomas, tear down these tents. pic.twitter.com/aL2GNXCJDk

In a series of follow-up tweets, Kelloway said she was glad she had managed to raise awareness of the issue. “If these people had nowhere else to go my comments would be horrible and heartless! But they do have somewhere to go. There are more than enough hostel beds available in Cardiff. I want them in rooms, not in tents.”

She said she had worked previously for homelessness charities and sat on the council’s adult services committee. “I know there are enough spaces in hostels for these people and it is a failure of policy that they are allowed to live in tents instead of using services,” she said.

Richard Edwards, the chief executive of Huggard, a homelessness charity based in central Cardiff, said it was true that the city had a significant amount of emergency accommodation.

“There is enough emergency accommodation for people to come off the streets, but the reality is that people aren’t coming off the streets, so we need to look at the structural reasons why that’s happening.”

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He said people with substance misuse problems and mental ill-health might be deterred from emergency accommodation because it often involved communal sleeping arrangements, curfews and rules on alcohol and drugs.

“It shouldn’t be a blame culture,” he said. “If someone on the street has a substance misuse issue then they have an illness and they need more support rather than less support … Living in a tent isn’t a solution, but then victimising the people who are in the tents is another kettle of fish altogether.”

A council spokesperson said the authority was aware of the growing number of tents in the city and was working with charities and the police to try to find a way forward.

“We are concerned that the rise in the number of tents is having a direct impact on the numbers of rough sleepers who are deciding against taking up offers of support to come off the streets, to get the specialist help they need to turn their lives around,” the spokesperson said.

The council said the city had enough beds for people not to have to sleep on the streets. “It is only by encouraging them to take up our offers of support that we can begin the process of helping people off the streets for good.”

In a statement, Kelloway said: “The small minority of homeless people who do not use the housing provision available must be further encouraged to come indoors and engage with council services designed to help them. This will not be achieved if we send out the message that the tents can stay.

“I have long wanted to raise awareness that there are enough spaces in Cardiff’s hostels, where homeless people receive fantastic support from the council and partnered charities. I have many times asked the council executive to do more to make the public aware of this and dispel the myth that rough sleepers have nowhere to go. I’m glad that my tweet has gone some way to achieving this.”