Trust and participation in urban regeneration.

Citizen participation is encouraged in a variety of areas of public policy, not least in urban regeneration projects. Resident involvement is seen as possessing the potential to improve the managerial efficiency of schemes, to increase their legitimacy, to offer developmental benefits to participants and the wider community, and to progress civil rights. Local people who appear uninterested in becoming involved in such initiatives pose a significant challenge to policymakers and practitioners in the field. It has been suggested that developing trust in relevant organisations, officials or other local residents may offer a potential solution to citizens' disengagement. Very little research has been conducted into trust and its relationship with participation in the field of urban regeneration.The thesis presents research which explores resident trust in regeneration officers and its relationship with participation. The research took place in Chandless and Dunston in Gateshead and in West Kensington, London. A sequential mixed methods approach was employed, consisting of three phases: 14 qualitative interviews with residents across all three areas; a self-completion resident questionnaire distributed to 1,566 households in the Dunston and West Kensington regeneration areas from which 144 questionnaires were returned; and a further 12 qualitative interviews with questionnaire respondents living in the West Kensington regeneration area.Drawing upon a constructionism-influenced model of trust, this thesis argues that the specific characteristics which contribute to perceived trustworthiness will vary dependent upon the specific party and scenario in question. Trust in regeneration officers was found to be more closely connected with perceived similarities, such as those of experience, perception, priorities and understanding, than the notions of technical competence associated with trust in some other fields. The findings also demonstrated that residents' interpersonal trust in regeneration officers may be unlikely either to encourage or dissuade participation in projects. Instead the thesis highlights the potential importance of "system trust" in regeneration, where residents' more generalised trust in the entire network of relevant parties to be receptive, based upon their past experience of participatory mechanisms, is the important element in generating their involvement. In addition, the research makes wider contributions to knowledge in relation to interpersonal trust, public participation and professionalism in regeneration.