Until the late 1980s, local bus services operated by Midland Red West Limited in Hereford departed from a series of bus stands in St Peter's Square (Shire Hall Bus Station). With the move towards pedestrianisation within the City Centre this was becoming increasingly impractical for services to the south of the City, so a new bus station was established at Tesco Superstore of off Victoria Street.
Before the bus station was opened, buses operating Service 117 from Hereford City Centre (Shire Hall) to Newton Farm call at Tesco Superstore in both directions, but all other local Hereford services ran through the City Centre.
The new bus station opened in c. 1989 (exact date needed please), and from Monday 4th December 1989 it was officially renamed to “Hopper Bus Station” to reflect the “Hereford Hopper” network of local minibus services operated by Midland Red West Limited at the time. The site is quite small and so was restricted to only being used for local bus services operated with minibuses. Situated off Victoria Street, the new bus station was only a short walk from Hereford depot, allowing for driver reliefs to take place here. The company also posted an inspector at the site to oversee operations.
In 1997, Midland Red West Limited became part of FirstBus PLC, and the company renamed to First Midland Red Buses Limited on Friday 26th March 1999. The local brand names were quickly phased out under the ownership of FirstBus, and the “Hereford Hopper” name was no longer being used by the end of 1998. The bus station has had a bit of an identity crisis from this time, with the name City Bus Station and Tesco Bus Station both being regularly used, and sometime Minibus Station was also used.
Minibuses were not favoured by the FirstBus (later renamed to FirstGroup) management but while other depots saw their minibuses replaced with more conventional single-deck buses, the restricted space at this site made this difficult. Initial vehicle replacements in Hereford were therefore either with more modern Mercedes-Benz minibuses, all of them second-hand, or in 2001 and 2003 with new 27-seat low-floor Optare Solo minibuses.
First Midland Red introduced a new local Hereford network numbered from route number 71, with many routes were merged to become cross-city. To relieve congestion in the bus station, buses heading towards the north of the City no longer used the bus station stopping in Newmarket Street opposite the bus station, before continuing to St. Peter’s Square. With less vehicles using the site, larger vehicles could be used and the older minibuses were replaced to mid-sized Dennis Dart single-deck buses.