The Telegraph contradicts BBC, reporting that developer Billy Palmer who bought the Liverpool pub donning Banksy’s 30-foot tall machine-gun toting rat actually has no plans to keep the art work.
Interested primarily in restoring the building’s Gregorian glory and parceling it up as luxury flats, Palmer said: “I’m not a fan of modern art.” The artwork probably won’t seem so welcoming to utlra-bourgeois residents… and we had our hopes up… Bye bye, ratty.
In the future urban archaeologists will be removing layer after layer of paint to uncover those 'lost' Phase 2s out there.