From 1944 on large sums of treasure were spent by the Mighty State Machine to put prefabs up. Two decades later large sums of treasure were spent by the Mighty State Machine to
knock prefabs down. The old philosophy made famous by Tudor Walters ('ensure that public housing is of a high quality') was nudged to one side by the philosophy of Tudor T. Block ('just ensure that public housing is high'.)
Those who first moved into the new tower blocks were typically bricklayers, bus drivers, panel beaters, shop assistants and the like. Human capital of this type has low investment costs and is thus easily replaceable if the blocks come crashing down in the Ronan Point style of 1968. Followers of Le Corbusier (or Charles-Edouard Jeanneret as Dai 'Tolstoy' Lectic always called him) had nothing in principle against ground-hugging prefabs. They just wanted to have them lifted high into the sky. This would enable their cloud-hugging residents to give "not waving but drowning" waves to the pilots of aeroplanes who zoomed by their kitchen windows.
A financial spur to the 'Corbusier/Jeanneret hoist prefabs skywards' movement was provided by the 1956 Housing Subsidy Act. If public housing went up four floors the local authority was given £20 for each flat. If it went up another two floors this largesse was almost doubled. The low-density/one-storey 1940s' prefabs with their front and back gardens buttered none of T. Dan Smith's planning committee parsnips and earned zilch fees for John Poulson's architect and consultancy firm. So it was little wonder that prefabs were soon trembling in their low-slung boots. "So this is how the Russian aristocracy felt in 1917" said a mellow Dai 'Tolstoy' Lectic in prefab number one. The lateral thinkers in the 'Home Counties' (as if every county is not a 'home' county to those who live in it) had won game, set and match. Their case against housing the masses in low-density housing on acres of expensive land won the day. Just as cloud-touching high tech flats went up the little prefabs with their little gardens were coming down.