An exhibition of photographs documenting inner city Liverpool in the early 1970s goes on show next week at the Bluecoat.

Taken by photographer Tricia Porter a decade before the area was in the media spotlight for the Toxteth Riots of 1981, these black and white images paint a vivid picture of everyday life in Liverpool 8 at a time when its tight knit communities were disintegrating in the wake of inner city development.

“It was,” says Porter, “an attempt to make a photo documentary which would be a positive and meaningful statement about my neighbours, who had all too often been treated as statistical fodder and sociological phenomena.”

Tricia Porter: Liverpool Photographs 1972-74 is at the Bluecoat, Liverpool April 4 to July 5

Above: Boys playing in the Anglican cathedral grounds, 1974