I have heard of some sort of vague possibility of a temporary short term stand alone trial. It would presumably have to use aircraft/PAOC etc. all hired in. Given the lack of decent spare police machines, it would not really prove very much.
What makes the difference and gets a police force an ASU is a small group of senior officers who push for their own. Kent have been f****ying around for so long, you wonder what it would take to convince them.
The trouble is that they cannot really get into a consortium and share a machine within any other force sensibly. The geography would mean that the other force(s) Air Support would be very seriously adversely affected. Maybe they should wait until the UK gets a border police and borrow from them, like they have from most other forces in the SE of England over the years.
The current financial position of police force cuts makes it less rather than more likely. This is a shame, because Kent could really use its own Air Support