Oxfordshire County Council has taken a positive and pragmatic approach to adopting streets and other areas using concrete block permeable paving for some 15 years.

The Lamb Drove SuDS Monitoring project in Cambourne demonstrates that SuDS work and should cost less. It also highlights the robust performance of concrete block permeable paving.

This case study – updated with 2012 site visits – looks at how precast concrete paving, including permeable paving, forms an important part of the hard landscaping palette of a major multi-disciplinary practice involved with a diversity of projects.

With the recent completion of public realm regeneration at the east London Brownfield Estate, Interpave has substantially updated its case study on this exemplary project. Brownfield includes modernist architect Ernö Goldfinger’s listed, ‘brutalist’ concrete high-rise blocks – including Balfron Tower – from the late 60’s and early ’70s.

This case study demonstrates how concrete block permeable paved drives, parking and adopted roads can store and treat runoff from all the hard surfaces on a typical new housing development without any additional land-take or other SuDS features.