Changes to British Standard for Paving Design

Pavement engineers, architects and landscape architects will no longer need to wade through several structural design standards, thanks to the introduction of the new consolidated BS 7533:101:2021 standard.

With this new standard, there won’t be the need to cross reference each standard against others to ensure the sub-base, laying course and surfacing materials are designed correctly.

Released in August 2021 after years of consultation, the new standard consolidates seven existing standards – BS 7533-1, BS 7533-2, BS 7533-6, BS 7533-7, BS 7533-8, BS 7533-10 and BS7533-12.

What’s different about BS7533:101:2021?

The new standard covers bound and unbound pavement design and provides an increased number of traffic categories to choose from. This means sub-base design is not being over-engineered, as was previously the case.

The new standard also provides clarity on the recommended laying patterns for different traffic categories, something that was missing previously.

Reducing design errors and failures

The paving industry had been crying out for these documents to be updated, to simplify the design process and encourage more designers to specify concrete modular paving.

This new standard now becomes best practice for the design of modular paving in the UK and will help to greatly reduce the cases of design errors and pavement failures occurring.

How Tobermore can help

To make the process of designing Tobermore paving products simple and to save time for designers, we have updated our online sub-base specifier tool in line with BS 7533:101.

The sub-base specifier tool allows the user to select the specific product, size and depth they want, and select the relevant traffic category. The tool will then provide a drawing in CAD and PDF formats showing the correct sub-base design specification.

We also have dedicated paving and walling specification and technical teams, who are ready to answer any questions you may have.

More changes ahead

Further to these changes, another new standard BS 7533-102 will be released in the coming months, covering the installation of modular paving. This new standard will replace BS 7533-3, BS 7533-4, BS 7533-7 and BS 7533-11, consolidating them into one standard.

BS 7533:13 remains the standard for designing permeable paving, but this is also in the early process of being updated and a new BS 7533:103 will eventually be released.