UK Standard

BS 7533 — Pavement & Paving Construction

BS 7533 — Pavements constructed with clay, natural stone or concrete pavers

In short: BS 7533 is the British Standard series governing the design and construction of paving — covering bedding, jointing, laying course depth and minimum falls for clay, stone and concrete pavers.

What BS 7533 covers

The series sets out how paving should be built to perform structurally and drain correctly, rather than how much material you need.

It specifies a full wet mortar bed for slabs (not dot-and-dab) and a minimum fall of 1:60 to shed surface water away from structures.

The series was restructured in recent editions: the older part numbers (e.g. BS 7533-13) have been superseded by the BS 7533-101/102/103 structure.

Key BS 7533 parts referenced
Part Covers Used for
BS 7533-101:2021 Bedding & laying — full wet bed Paving slab bedding
BS 7533-102 Structural design of pavements Driveways & trafficked areas
BS 7533-103:2026 Workmanship & laying (formerly BS 7533-13, withdrawn 2026) Block paving laying

Official source: BSI Knowledge — BS 7533 series. Figures on this page are a plain-English summary for estimating purposes — always refer to the published standard for compliance.