17. Transportation Volume One from aircraft using the airport. The noise management plan will include, as a minimum, a contact for receiving and co-ordinating responses to aircraft related noise complaints, a complaints register, the establishment of an independently chaired Airport Noise Committee and a methodology for resolving aircraft related noise complaints. Land Transportation Issue 17C – The land transport network is an important regional resource, providing for the movement of people, goods, services and resources. It is important to ensure an efficient infrastructure is maintained to enable people and communities to provide for their economic and social wellbeing. Marlborough’s land transport network is a significant component of the physical resources of the District and has been identified in Chapter 4 - Use of Natural and Physical Resources as regionally significant infrastructure. This reflects the Council's function under Section 30 of the RMA regarding the strategic integration of infrastructure with land use. The network of roads, rail, cycleways and pedestrian pathways and the movement of vehicles, goods and people through that network are essential to the District’s economic activity and the convenience and wellbeing of the people of Marlborough. Marlborough’s road network connects settlements in Marlborough with other regions and connects the other key transport modes of air, rail and water transport. The road network is strategically important, both regionally and nationally, with State Highway 1 running through the District. Due to Marlborough’s extensive land area, relatively low population base and a resulting lack of alternative forms of transport, Marlborough is heavily reliant on private motor vehicle transport. This has resulted in an extensive rural road network where state highways form connections between other districts, major arterial routes within Marlborough, local sealed roads and many kilometres of metalled roads extending far into rural areas. The arterial road network hierarchy includes State Highways 1, 6, 62 and 63, primary arterial routes along Queen Charlotte Drive and Kent Street, Picton, as well as a number of secondary arterial roads in the urban environs of Blenheim. Existing access points from private property onto these state highway and arterial routes are numerous. On some sections of Marlborough’s state highways, 'limited access roads' have been declared, meaning that properties can only be accessed from 'authorised crossing points' determined under the provisions of the Government Roading Powers Act 1989. Most of the current road transport issues have arisen from the pressures of growth and development, which includes servicing expanding vineyards, marine farming traffic and increased logging traffic sharing roads with an expanding number of residents and visitors, particularly in the Marlborough Sounds. Factors originating outside of Marlborough can also have implications (for example, increasing tourist numbers and greater volumes of freight being transported through the District). Due to the nature of existing development adjoining and surrounding roads (for example, in locations such as Blenheim and the Wairau Plain), it is extremely difficult physically, legally and economically to develop new or alternative roads, or even in some locations to widen existing road reserves. With this in mind, the existing land transport network resource must be managed in a way that ensures its ability to operate efficiently, including for access to properties, is not undermined. 17 – 6