Hundreds of residents of the budget hotel chain Travelodge, including homeless families housed there by local councils, have been turned out on to the street after it closed its premises.

The chain issued letters to all residents on Tuesday asking them to leave as soon as possible as they were “temporarily closing the hotels until further notice” in the light of the UK government’s extended coronavirus physical distancing guidelines issued on Monday.

This appeared to be in defiance of government guidance issued the same day that said that hotels looking after homeless families who had been placed in temporary accommodation at in hotels should not close.

The closure led to chaos and dismay among families and local authority homelessness workers.

Anthony Morson (@tonymorson) @TravelodgeUK. Heathrow #travelodge this morning. Two knocks on the door... two hours to leave... and two more nights left on booking. No explanation and no response to families begging for help with kids in strollers. Evicted onto street in pandemic.. irresponsible and immoral https://t.co/ocq0zooebB

A Spelthorne council housing worker tweeted: “Travelodge gave us four hours’ notice to find alternative accommodation for our clients. One was 84 years old. Luckily we managed to find other rooms by the skin of our teeth. Now no backup for out of hours or hospital discharge if other hotel chains closed. This is only wk 1!”

In Milton Keynes, reports suggested a dozen homeless people were at the council’s civic offices on Tuesday night after being ejected from rooms at local Travelodge and Jurys Inn hotels. “Nowhere will take anybody in because of the coronavirus risk. It is proving really difficult,” one homelessness worker told the MK Citizen website.

Chains such as Travelodge have made millions of pounds in recent years from local authorities by providing emergency accommodation for homeless families waiting to be placed in more suitable temporary accommodation.

An anonymous local authority housing officer tweeted: “This week/last week has been hell on earth. Housing Advice Services were drowning before coronavirus, now it is actually critical. Illegal evictions, loss of TA and families evicting in numbers I’ve never seen before. Loss of Travelodge is devastating.”

Anthony Morson, who had been self-isolating at Heathrow Travelodge after flying in with his wife to see his father, who has leukaemia, told the Guardian he was asked to leave on Tuesday with just two hours’ notice.

Other residents who were turned out on to the streets included an Australian family with three children, contract workers at Heathrow, and an Asian family stuck in transit. Some residents told him they had been staying there for two years.

Morson said there were tense scenes at the reception, with some residents in tears as staff were unable to give any explanation for closing the hotel other than to say it was as a result of government guidance. They offered no advice about where else to go and no refunds were offered.

Morson, who was able to find a room at nearby hotel, said: “There was no advice, no explanation. They should have given people at least another night to try and find alternative accommodation. The whole thing was very peculiar.”

A spokesperson for Travelodge said: “Travelodge has been obliged to commence the temporary closure of its hotels in line with the instructions from the government on 24 March 2020. We do expect to remain open in selected critical locations across the country to support accommodation for emergency workers and other groups.

“We are reviewing daily which hotels are best positioned to support the needs that arise with the government while ensuring we comply with the new restrictions in place to protect the public.”

There are fears that closures of caravan parks will cause similar problems. A Northamptonshire site typically used by residents who have a second property abroad closed abruptly on Tuesday. Many class the UK caravan as their permanent home and live there for 10 months of the year but now cannot fly out to their second property.

On Tuesday night, the children’s commissioner for England, Anne Longfield, urged ministers to allow councils to requisition empty Airbnb properties as short-term rental blocks and hotels that had rooms with cooking facilities to put up homeless families .

In a letter to the housing secretary, Robert Jenrick, she wrote: “The government needs to provide local authorities with the resources to source these homes and combined with a clear expectation that homes need to be sourced quickly. I would like to see this combined with clear messaging to landlords: co-operate or the government will act.

“It would be a particular disgrace to have closed down apartments – many run by businesses which will be receiving government funds in the next few months – while close by families are homeless.

‘‘I would urge you to commit that any hotel or property business receiving government support, or wage subsidies, in the next few months will have to commit to housing families at cost. If local authorities are supported by the government with both resourcing and clear messaging I believe we can get these families a decent home to call their own – at least for the next four months.”

According to the housing lawyer Giles Peaker, Travelodge originally said it would close on Thursday, giving residents – who also include tourists and key workers – enough time to try to find other accommodation.

On his blog, Peaker said: “This needs urgent national-level intervention. For all that I might criticise councils for putting people into basic hotels and then leaving them there for long periods, we all know the huge pressures on the availability of temporary and emergency accommodation for council homeless units. Past this immediate crisis of today, there will be virtually no emergency accommodation for homeless applicants.”