Pettycur Bay Holiday Park: Owners reflect on a landmark 40th year


The views from balconies of these luxury caravan holiday homes, high up the site, are simply breathtaking. From the beach down below, along to Burntisland – known for its funfair in the summer - and across to Edinburgh - is a panorama that is always mesmerising.
It also shows the sheer size of the family run holiday park which this year has marked its 40th anniversary with the construction of a new apartment complex to be launched next Autumn. Certainly, the scale is not always visible from the main road.
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Hide AdOriginally accommodating around 170 caravans, plus a shop and an office, the park now has 600 holiday homes, alongside an impressive leisure and entertainment complex, plus a hotel – named The Bay Hotel.


Pettycur - one of Scotland’s biggest holiday parks - is also the flagship of the family-run business which also owns and runs Kinghorn Harbour Holiday Park, the Old Manor Hotel in Lundin Links, and Leven Beach Holiday Park.
Owners, the Wallace family, have come a long way from the very early days of offering holidaymakers, and holiday homeowners, caravans with basic amenities. In those early days, some had no electricity, and many weren’t even plumbed in.
Bought from Andrew Marshall in 1984, the Wallace family now have a three-generation business.
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Hide AdTommy Wallace is a director, along with brother Alan, and Alan’s son Steven.
Tommy said: “My dad worked for Miller Construction as a Joiner and General Foreman. At weekends he bought old caravans, did them up and then sold them. He later went up to St Andrews and started hiring them out,” at that time Tommy and Alan were still at school but went there on weekends and holidays to help with cleaning and servicing the caravans.”
“At St Andrews we had to remove the caravans at the end of the season and were taking a hit with transport costs, so dad bought an old Land Rover and trailer to do it ourselves. Other people started to ask us to move their caravans off site at the end of the season and before we knew it, we had a transport business.”
That business, which was based in Kinglassie, saw them regularly delivering caravans to Pettycur Bay, prompting the owner to invite to Tom Senior to manage the business for him.
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Hide Ad“My dad had worked for Miller Construction, and he didn’t want to go back to working for someone else. Andrew wanted to sell Pettycur Bay to a family rather than a large ‘faceless’ company, so when it came up, we made the decision to buy it. It was a big leap into the unknown going into the holiday park business, but we were all in and fully committed.”
“My brother and I were both apprentice mechanics at Briggs and SMT, but still working weekends in the transport business. We sold our cars, emptied our bank accounts and sold the transport business and borrowed money from the bank to buy the park, and never looked back – our first target was to pay back the bank loan and we’ve never borrowed a penny since…”
“We were always very hands on, right from the start. We expanded the park, renewing electrics, adding telephone cables, plumbing in every caravan on the park, (this was all done by hand), and upgrading all amenities. The older caravans that were rented out constantly needed repaired, so we added a new hire fleet, and regularly replace them now so that they rarely need maintenance apart from cleaning.”
Pettycur now employs 120 full-time staff, with another 40 seasonal workers, looking after visitors from across the central belt as well as UK, Ireland and overseas. The 47-acre site, notable for its steep incline, sees row upon row of environmental green caravans.
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Hide Ad1998 saw the Bay Leisure Complex open its doors, followed by the Bay Hotel in 2008 - two major landmark developments for the park.
“The Bay Complex was a huge step,” said Tommy. “We were one of the first in the country to add these facilities. Many parks had pubs or arcades, but few had a complete leisure centre with swimming pool, restaurant, and entertainment Lounge. It was a big investment, and a great attraction for people coming to the park – it still is.”
“After we built it, I was on the balcony with my dad and said wouldn’t it be great if we had a hotel added onto the side of this - that was another leap of faith that was realised in 2008.”
The third major development is currently under construction with new 3-bedroom luxury apartments being added, with new space below for the maintenance teams to operate out of. The doors are due to open Autumn 2025.
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Hide AdExpansion has gone beyond the site, with the Old Manor Hotel in Lundin Links added in 2021 - “this is a game changer that takes us more upmarket, we are delighted to have another hotel”. It’s the second major investment in the area for the Wallace’s, with Leven Beach Holiday Park acquired in 1989.
“We bought the park from Fife Council, and it was empty - there was nothing on the land, but that gave us a blank sheet to start from.”
The Old Manor Hotel came into the picture while they were on the lookout for another holiday park,” said Tommy.
“It was in need of some TLC,” he added. “We’ve spent quite a bit on it so far, a lot of it in the background where the customers don’t see - we’ve also spruced up a few bedrooms and bathrooms, which were looking a bit tired. The bar and lounge have been refurbished and the restaurant will be next. It’s a rolling programme which we want to do without closing the hotel.”
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Hide AdThat purchase also was timed neatly to add a new dimension to the fly on the wall TV series which took the holiday park to a whole new audience. ‘Life On The Bay’ proved a huge hit with viewers and put Pettycur Bay and the family in front of the cameras for three successful series.
It was, Tommy admitted, a bit out of left field - but an opportunity too good to pass up.
“It has been great for us and the holiday park industry as a whole.” he said. “We thought we’d get just the one series, but ended up doing three which was a bonus we didn’t expect, the door is always open to do more in the future, maybe specials.”
“It generated a lot of interest and was 100% good for us. We’d go to caravan shows and be the ones trying to engage in conversations with folk - now they’re approaching us to chat about the show.”
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Hide AdThe ‘glamour’ of television aside, managing Pettycur remains a hands-on job for all the family.
“We rely on managers for our hotels and running ‘The Bay’ complex, but we are here all the time with our General Manager, Janet, who does a fantastic job for us. In the early days it was not unusual for us to be out cutting grass all day, digging, cleaning out the septic tanks, and then doing a shift in the bars or kitchens at night. That experience in all aspects of the business gives you better insight into how holiday parks need to be run.” “We’re still very much hands on, if I sat behind a desk, I’d be bored stiff!”
With construction of the new apartments well underway and a hotel refurbishment ongoing, there is still much to do. ”Every day is different,” said Tommy. “We did well after lockdown as people took staycations - that gave us a real boost - but this year’s seen a downturn in the holiday park industry. We had a feeling that it was coming and ordered a lot fewer caravans than usual – Manufacturers are taking a bit of a hit this year too, one was down to a day and a half a week - but we have been through all the peaks and troughs before, and we know it will pick up again.”
After all .. Pettycur Bay Holiday Park will always have the views …