A Bromley homeowner who goes to sleep every night in a potential fire-trap has spoken out about the financial, mental and legal misery caused by the scandal of dangerous cladding.

Ritu Saha is a first-time buyer in a high rise with Grenfell-type cladding, and she says she has "spent eight years of my hard-earned money down the toilet."

Talking to the PA news agency, the university administrator said it was "heartbreaking to see that such a disaster happened three years ago and yet so little progress has been made to make buildings safe.

Ms Saha, who lives on the top floor of the Northpoint building in Bromley, south London, said she is essentially living "hand-to-mouth" as she struggles to pay expensive temporary safety measures.

She said her building is coated in a mix of combustible aluminium composite material, similar to the kind used on Grenfell Tower, and the flammable high pressure laminate material, which is made of paper and resin.

Describing the mental affect of living this way, Saha said: "It takes such a toll on your mental health to find out that the place you're living in is unsafe and that a fire from the bottom can spread to the 10th floor, where I am, in seven minutes flat.

"I have seven minutes to get out in the middle of the night through smoke-filled corridors. The pressure of that is huge."

Ms Saha co-founded the campaigning UK Cladding Action Group to join homeowners in similar unfortunate situations together to get redress from the Government.

To date, the Government has made a total of £1.6 billion available to remove different types of unsafe cladding on high-rises.

But Ms Saha said the amount was "paltry" and there is "so much bureaucracy" involved in getting access to the funds.

The 44-year-old said residents in her 57-flat block face paying up to £75,000 each if they cannot secure Government money.

She also described being saddled with a £13,700 bill for a 24-hour fire warden in her block and her building insurance premium more than doubling this year.

The Government's new £1 billion fund to remove non-ACM cladding is open for applications until July 31, and will be allocated on a "first come, first served" basis.

But Ms Saha went on: "Every day we've got new people contacting us saying 'I've just found out my building has unsafe cladding'.

"Three years on from Grenfell why have they just now found out? Surely the Government should have done more to find out themselves. These people have been living with a false sense of security.

"It is shocking they are taking a 'first come, first served' approach to the safety of human beings.

"A fire can break out at any time and prove to be catastrophic."

Lamenting a lack of public understanding of the issue, she said: "Imagine the uproar if bricks in Victorian houses were deemed unsafe and everyone had to remove them at their own cost and build their houses again.

"That's the situation we're in.

"The only thing we can say right now is that it's not the fault of the residents. Yet we're the ones bearing the financial, mental and legal burden."

A Government spokesman said: "The safety of residents is our top priority and since the Grenfell Tower fire we have worked tirelessly with councils to identify buildings at risk and ensure they are made safe.

"We are providing £1.6 billion for the removal and replacement of unsafe cladding from high-rise buildings and are bringing forward the biggest legislative changes in a generation to provide further enforcement powers against those who do not comply with the law and ensuring that residents' safety is at the heart of the construction process.

"Building owners have a legal responsibility to keep their residents safe and whilst we have seen positive action from some, we are clear that more needs to be done to protect their tenants."

The public inquiry into the disaster was paused in March because of the pandemic and is due to restart on July 6.