Trading Statement

Persimmon PLC
17 December 2001



                                                            17th December 2001


This trading update is published ahead of the preliminary announcement of the
group's results for the year to 31st December 2001, due on 4th March 2002.
Persimmon will be meeting stockbrokers' analysts today prior to entering close
period.

                              TRADING STATEMENT

With the acquisition of the Beazer Group in March, this year has been the most
important period in Persimmon's history.

We announced in our interim results on 28th August 2001 that Beazer had been
fully integrated into Persimmon. Since then, we have continued to focus the
enlarged business on maximising margins and profitability.

When we acquired Beazer the key elements of our strategy were to improve
operating margins by maximising selling prices, reducing build costs and
overheads with an increased emphasis on profit per plot.

We are pleased to be able to report that the immediate and subsequent action
we have taken has accelerated synergy savings and has ensured that all our
stated short term objectives have been exceeded. We are also confident that we
will achieve our stated aim to reduce gearing from over 100% at the time of
acquisition to around 70% by the year end.

Both North and South divisions continue to trade well and our restructuring of
the Charles Church business will show benefits during next year and into 2003.
Charles Church is on track to complete in excess of 700 units next year and by
the end of 2002 will have the infrastructure in place to complete around 1,000
units per annum, in line with previous projections.

Sales reservations since September 11th have continued at good rates in all
regions, with further price improvements in most areas outside of the South
East. Our exposure to the South East, where higher priced properties have
experienced a more difficult market recently, is under 10% of our activity. We
believe that this is a temporary slowdown which, with an increasing shortage
of supply, will return to normal levels of activity in the near future.

We have continued to acquire land at acceptable prices whilst managing a
reduction of our landbank to ensure that we maintain an appropriate number and
mix of plots across the UK for the enlarged business. Our total landbank will
be in excess of 52,000 plots at the year end.

The UK market remains strong and, notwithstanding uncertainties in the global
outlook, the environment for private housebuilding is positive, with low
interest rates and good levels of employment and consumer confidence.

Our forward sales into next year are encouraging with over 3,000 homes already
sold, producing c. £380 million of sales revenue at good margins. During
recent weeks visitor levels have been very good and, with in excess of 100 new
sales outlets to be opened during the first half of next year we remain
confident about future prospects.

                                   - ENDS -

For further information, please contact:

John White, Group Chief Executive           Faeth Finnemore/ Jenna Littler
Mike Killoran, Group Finance Director       Finsbury Group
Persimmon plc                               Tel: [phone]
Tel: [phone] (today)
Tel: [phone] (thereafter)

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