This paper investigates a new family of fibre laminated plate assemblies. The assemblies covered are prismatic and consist of a series of thin, flat, rectangular plates that have a series of equally spaced voids, which run for the full length of the central layer of the plates and have constant rectangular cross-section. Optimization of an important sub-group of such plate assemblies, namely blade-stiffened panels, is studied parametrically with the objective of minimizing their mass subject to buckling constraint under pure longitudinal compression. Ply thicknesses, fibre orientation and height of the blade stiffeners are the design variables used when optimizing and the variables changed during the parametric study are the number of stiffeners, a nondimensional load parameter and the aspect ratio of the panels. The parametric study shows graphically the effects on the panel mass of the number of voids in the portion between stiffeners, the thickness of individual voids, the number of stiffeners and the effects of prescribing the values of the stiffener height or thickness. It is observed that a substantial, e.g. 16-20%, mass saving can be achieved by using voids in the way advocated. These percentages are very close to those obtained by using the same voids for an individual plate that is identical to the skin between blades and is simply supported.