Angels, not a lot to choose between the two hotels now and, as my apartment is just 250 yards away from the Golden Sands, the mosque is my early morning call!! Have to check on the reggae bar but I think it has gone.
Firestreak, are you sure of those dates? Western Hill did not start operating until around August 1966. We all trooped over for the official first day of ops only for some of us to have to move back to Butterworth to man the Aussie kit again when the TPS34 (useless piece of kit!) went u/s. In the 50s, it would have been 487 SU until 114 MCRU (RAAF) took over in 1958. Western Hill took over from 114.
Whenurhappy, I had the same problem when researching a 60 Sqn Vampire crash from 1952. All the newspapers from that time are stored in the National Archive in KL and I needed to go through the route that you mention to view them. I did, however, manage a couple of visits to obtain most of what I wanted without getting the proper authority but was very politely informed that for more I would need to go down the official route.