Helinut
Spot on!
It's ALL about the savings. It will be interesting to see how the next round of cuts effect the service, I know from experience that the boys and girls in NPAS are working so hard to make this work, but I fear the lack of funding will eventually roll up more units towards the '9 aircraft option'.
All it will take is for the stats to show, lack of results, longer transits (including returning to base for fuel before going to the next task which also effects response times), falling requests for air support from small counties looking to save cash, and officers on the ground feeling it's not worth calling as it takes too long.
nice pic of the EAAA aircraft with the caption 'police helicopter' in the Suffolk news article posted by PAN.