Silver birch roots - speed of growth.

Morning all,

I've got the roots from next door's silver birch growing into my back garden and they've already damaged my patio quite extensively. Had a man round to quote for a new patio and he said that he could cut the roots back to the boundary (which will be about 3' - then there's another 12-13' in next door's garden before you get to the tree). I'm getting a letter from a surveyor to prove to the bloke next door that he has to cut his tree back or else it will damage my house but what I want to know is, if I cut back the roots AND the next door neighbour cuts the tree back, how long is it likely to be before the roots start to cause a problem again? What I don't want to do is cut the roots back, have a new patio put down and then and the same problem in a year.

Has anyone got any ideas/suggestions/advice please? Especially regarding the speed that the roots might return.

Thanks a lot everyone!

Dackers.

I have two silver birches in my garden. They were planted in 1978 by previous owners, and are about 50' high. The roots for the first 10 foot or so are very shallow and can be seen running through the lawn. I did find some more of them about 18 foot away where they were about 18 inches down.

I know that they generally have very shallow roots, but 18 foot in 30 years is pretty slow growing!

If the patio had been put in properly, it is unlikely the birch would have damaged it.