In fairness, Hibs first made a planning application for a new East Stand >10 years ago. They could be testing the water, or getting that problem sorted before getting everything else in place, or even just waiting for market conditions to change.

It would be a bit of a pain for AFC to carefully get the money in place for such a project and then find that they couldn't get permission for it, ie if it ended up in planning hell, along with that bypass that's never been built.